.1 

: i 



J 



no.4726 

LIBRARY 

OF THE 

DEPARTMENT OF STATE. 

Alcovi 
Shelf, 



r — 




BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA, 

o § 

WITH 

EXTEACTS FEOM A JOUENAL KEPT IN THE 
PROVINCES, NEPAL, &c. 



By Sib,ERSKINE PERRY, M.P. 

LATE CHIEF- JUSTICE OF BOMBAY. 



LONDON : 

JOHN MTJEEAY, ALBEMAELE STREET. 

1855. 



LONDON : 

BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. 



u 

Zl 



9 



PREFACE. 



The first part of this little publication contains 
the substance of two lectures which I had purported 
to deliver to my constituents at Devonport. My 
object was to convey as accurate an idea of the out- 
side of India, of that which first strikes the eye of 
a traveller, as my space and powers would permit. 
Circumstances, however, having frustrated my inten- 
tion, I have thrown my notes into the present form, 
with the hope of fostering the desire to know more 
of India, which appears to be growing up in the 
present age. With the same intention I have sub- 
joined some extracts from a journal which I made 
during one of my vacation trips. An Indian Judge 
especially on the Bombay bench, has great facilities 
for seeing different parts of the country during the 
intervals between business ; and by travelling light, 
I contrived to see most parts of India and Ceylon 
during my sojourn, extending over eleven years and 
a half in the East. I have thought that the daily 



IV 



PKEFACE. 



record of an Indian march, though it consisted of 
mere rude notes jotted down by the wayside, might 
be interesting to English travellers who should con- 
template a three or four months' trip in India. 

I have also added an Essay on the geographical 
distribution of the languages of India, which ap- 
peared in a scientific journal at Bombay. 

Hackness Hall, 1855. 



CONTENTS. 
— ♦ — 



Chapter I. 

Page 

Introduction. — Brahman View of Teaching. — Object of Lec- 
ture. — Interest of India to Englishmen . ... 1 

Chapter II. 

General Appearance. — Surface of India. — Divisible into three 

Portions— Hindustan — Deccan— The Concans and Carnatic. 4 

Chapter III. 

Mountains. — Vindhya Mountains. — Aravuli. — Mount Abu. — 
The Ghats. — The Western Ghats.— Himalayan.— India 
divisible into Zones .9 

Chapter IV. 

Supply of Water. — Monsoon Rains.— Setting in of the 

Monsoon . , *@ 

Chapter V. 

Climate. — India approached from the Sea .... 21 

Chapter VI. 

Productions. — Productions of India. — Tin. — Cinnamon. — 
Ophir of Scripture.— Pepper and Spices. — Cotton.— Sugar 
— Oranges. — Pearls. — Diamonds. — Gems of Ceylon. — Lo- 
calities of precious Products. — Cinnamon. — Cardamoms. 
Teak. — Cotton Zone. — Food of Inhabitants . . . 25 

Chapter VII. 

Animals.— The Elephant.— The Tiger.— Indian Lion.— Wild 

Ass • 35 

Chapter VIII. 

End of First Lecture , , , ... 40 



vi 



CONTENTS. 



Chapter IX. Page 

Inhabitants of India. — Their numbers. — Hindus. — Mussalinans. 

— Parsis. — Jews, &c. — Importance of Hindu Element . 42 

Chapter X. 

Early Civilisation of India. — iEra of Chandragupta. — Account 

of Buddha.— Date of Vedas 48 

Chapter XI. 

Religion of the Hindus. — Tendency to change. — Difficulties for 

Missionaries. — Account of Swinging Festival ... 55 

Chapter XII. 

Casts. — Brahmans. — Tendency to subdivision of Casts . . 64 

Chapter XIII. 

Physical Appearance of Inhabitants of India. — Manners. — 

Dress. — Food. — Social Life. — Morals .... 69 

Chapter XIV. 

Hindu Marriages. — Expences of Marriage. — Polygamy. — 

Polyandry. — Nair Marriages 79 

Chapter XV. 

Self-Government among the Hindus. — Organisation of Hindu 

Village. — Duties of a Hindu Sovereign . . . .85 

Chapter XVI. 

Influence of the English in India. — Public Works.— Education. 

— Christianity. — Future of India ..... 93 



PAET II. 

JOURNAL OF A VACATION TRIP IN INDIA, THROUGH 
RAJPUTANA, THE NORTH-WEST PROVINCES, AND 
NEPAL. 

Chapter XVII. 

Modes of Travelling in India. — Journey from Bombay to 

Baroda 98 

Chapter XVIII. 
Baroda — The Gaik war's Levee. — Elephant Fight . . . 104 



CONTENTS. 



Vll. 



Chapter XIX. Page 

Long Ride before Breakfast. — Details of Cortege on march. — 

Description of Gujarat. — Man murdered on line of march. Ill 



Chapter XX, 



Description of Rajput Villages.— Bhil Aborigines.— Architec- 
tural Wells H8 



Chapter XXI. 



Early Morning Bath. — Advantages of Hindu Temples to Tra- 
vellers. — Lake and Town of Salumba . . . .122 

Chapter XXII. 

The Deybar Lake. — Rao of Salumba. — Brahman Hospitality. — 

Rajput Architecture . 126 

Chapter XXIII. 

Udipur.— Visit to Rana.— Rajput Architecture. — Day's Hog- 
Shooting. — Old Capital of Rajputs. — Chitore. — Idleness of 
Rajputs . . . 130 

Chapter XXIV. 

Nusserabad. — Hospitality of Capt. Maitland. — Ajmir. — Col. 

Lowe Jaipur. — Native Government . . . .140 

Chapter XXV. 

Effects of Native Government in Rajputana. — Fine Tomb at 

Futtehpur. — Agra. — The Taj 145 

Chapter XXVI. 

Muttra.— The Mathura of the Hindus.— The Holy Bindraband. 

—Delhi 151 

Chapter XXVII. 

Umbala. — Snowy Range. — Excellent Roads of Upper Provinces. 
— Change Route to Nepal and the Eastward. — Saharanpur. 
— Native Witnesses. — Meerut . . . . .158 

Chapter XXVIII. 

Cawnpur. — Improving State of Country. — Lucknow. — Elephant 

Fight. — Visit to King 163 

Chapter XXIX. 
Lucknow.— Establishment founded by General Martin.— State 

of kingdom of Oude 171 



Vlll 



CONTENTS. 



Chapter XXX. Page 

Journal through Oude to Nepal. — Indigo Planters. — The 
Ancient Ayodha or Oudh. — Gorackpur. — Opium Culti- 
vation . . . . . . . . .179 

Chapter XXXI. 

Ascent to the Valley of Nepal. — Valley of Katmandu. — Reve- 
nues of Nepal. — Account of Terai . . . . .186 

Chapter XXXII. 
Massacre of Nobles in Nepal. — Jung Bahadur. . . .194 

Chapter XXXIII. 

Suttee in Nepal. — Sequel of the Nepal Revolution. — Appear- 
ance of the Gorkhas. — Visit to Jung Bahadur . . . 201 

Chapter XXXIV. 
View of Dwala-giri and the Snowy Range. — Budhist Temple . 209 

Chapter XXXV. 

Departure from Nepal. — Descent through the Fever Passes. — 

Description of Terai . . . . . . .214 

Chapter XXXVI. 

Benares. — English College erecting. — Temples. — Wealth of 

Benares. — Anglo-Indian Registration . . . .217 

Chapter XXXVII. 

Improvement of Gorakpur under the English. — Leave Benares 
for Calcutta. — Appearance of Bahar. — Employment of 
Brahmans ......... 223 

Chapter XXXVIII. 
Native Gratitude to English Benefactors .... 229 

Chapter XXXIX. 
Arrival at Calcutta. — Voyage to Bombay. — Indian Confessions. 233 

Chapter XL. 

The Languages of India 241 

Chapter XLI. 

On a Lingua Franca in India . . . . . 266 



A 

BIKD'S-EYE VIEW OE INDIA. 



CHAPTER I. 

INTKODUCTIOK 

Brahman View of Teaching. — Object of Lecture. — Interest of India 
to Englishmen. 

The Brahmans of India have laid down, amongst 
other remarkable doctrines, that the highest duty 
which belongs to them as a sacred order is gratuitous 
teaching. It appears to me that this ancient dogma 
of a civilisation three thousand years old is rapidly 
diffusing itself in England, and that it is beginning 
to be felt that those possessed of leisure can propose 
to themselves no more gracious task than an 
attempt to spread information, or to awaken the 
taste for intellectual inquiries amongst their contem- 
poraries. Impressed with this conviction, I did not 
consider myself at liberty to refuse the request of my 
constituents to appear before them as a lecturer; 
and I have selected a subject on which I necessarily 
know something, and which in my own bosom 

B 



2 



A BIKC^S-EYE VIEW OE INDIA. 



awakens a never-flagging interest, that I would fain 
communicate to others. 

For what is it that I propose to put before you in 
its most salient features ? One of the fairest regions 
of God's earth, nearly equal in extent and population 
to Europe, — peopled by one hundred and sixty mil- 
lions of no savage or uncultivated race, but heirs of 
a civilisation which extends to the remotest antiquity, 
— the birthplace of two religious creeds which still 
number as their votaries the majority of mankind, 
— a land richer in productions, more blessed in 
climate, and higher endowed with grand natural 
features of mountain and of stream than any country 
in the world. India, to all antiquity, so far as his- 
tory bears record, was ever an object of the deepest 
interest, not unaccompanied with mystery; and in 
the present day, when our lengthened connection with 
the country, and the progress of scientific inquiry 
connected with the early history of the human race, 
are continually bringing new facts to light, it is 
found that the interest as well as the mystery invest- 
ing this Land of the Sun proportionably increases. 
But to inhabitants of the British Islands, who reflect 
that to them it is given under Providence to sway the 
destinies, either for weal or for woe, of this great 
Asiatic empire, India forces itself on their attention, 
not only as a subject of mere scholarly curiosity, but 
as connected with vast interests affecting the wel- 
fare of mankind, in which every Englishman may 
aspire to take an active part, and as to which, there- 
fore, every Englishman should instruct himself. 



OBJECT OF LECTURE. 



3 



Within the brief limits of a lecture I cannot hope, 
and consequently shall not attempt, to do more than 
awaken an interest in my theme, so as to stimulate 
further inquiries ; and all that I aim to put before you 
at the present moment is what I may call an eye- 
picture of sunny Hindustan. 



B 2 



4 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OE INDIA. 



CHAPTEE II. 

GENERAL APPEARANCE. 

Surface of India. — Divisible into three Portions — Hindustan — Deccan 
— The Concans and Carnatic. 

On studying the map of India with attention it 
will be found that Sir William Jones's illustration of 
the four-sided figure called by mathematicians a 
trapezium gives the best general idea of the country. 
Now, if in this trapezium a diameter be drawn from 
the mouths of the Indus to the mouths of the Brah- 
maputra, two irregular triangles will be formed, each 
of which contains a country with distinct characters 
of its own as to geological formation, profile of 
surface, climate, and races of inhabitants. The 
northern triangle, whose apex approaches Ladak, is a 
country emphatically of plains, and in India it bears 
the name of Hindustan, which it received from its 
Mogol invaders, its ancient denomination amongst 
Hindu geographers being Aria-varta, i.e., the land 
of the Aryans, and Jambudwipa, or country of the 
Jambu, or love-apple. The triangle to the south 
comprises the country usually called the Peninsula 
of India, or the Deccan, from Dakshina,* or " the 

* This is Lassen's derivation. — Bohlen and Ritter derive it from 
Dakshin, " south Sanscrit, Dakshinapatha, " the land to the south," 
with which agrees the Aax"'a/3a5?]s of Arrian. See Ritter, iv. 1, 424. 



HINDUSTAN. 



5 



right/' being the country to the right-hand of a 
pious Hindu when he is saluting the rising sun. 
It is essentially in its masses a table -land, from 
one thousand to three thousand feet high, and is 
supported by two vast mountain ranges skirting 
the sea-coast on either side called the Eastern and 
Western Ghats. Between these mountains and the 
sea, strips of land intervene, varying from ten to one 
hundred miles in breadth, and containing in their 
limits, especially on the western shore, sufficiently 
marked natural features and physical boundaries, to 
have given to their inhabitants, their languages, and 
manners, a distinct character from those of the plains 
above them. Geographers have no name for such 
strips of land, not unfrequent on the earth's surface, 
intervening between a range of mountains parallel 
to the sea and the coast-line ; but if we apply the 
denomination which is used in Western India, 
Concan, to describe such a portion of country, we 
shall be able under the terms Hindustan, the 
Deccan, and the Concans, to form to ourselves clear 
general ideas of the general surface of India, ex- 
cluding its mountain ranges. Now, if we attend 
carefully to this natural configuration of the country, 
we shall find much to explain the early civilisation of 
India, and its diffusion from a common centre. 
Northern India, or Hindustan, is extra-tropical, and 
throughout the greater part of its extent is as level as 
a bowling-green. By certain geological agencies 
whose history is being carefully investigated by 
observers, its surface has been covered with a rich 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



friable soil, and the mighty range of Himala to the 
north pours down upon it waters which probably 
are unequalled on the earth's surface for fertilising 
effects. It is clear, therefore, that no country in the 
world offered greater advantages for the development 
of the energies of man, or for the early growth of 
civilisation. For, although some countries, such as 
Greece and Italy, by their extended and deeply- 
indented coast-lines, offered immense encouragement 
to one of the greatest elements of progress — inter- 
communication between man and man — Hindustan, 
by its navigable rivers, and by the vast plains which 
I have spoken of, whose level and unwooded surface 
no rains during nine months of the year disturbed, 
offered an easier intercourse between different parts 
of the country in the earliest times than exists 
to this day in many parts of Europe, or even 
between different parishes in England. The plains of 
Hindustan, therefore, were always traversable in all 
directions by armies, travellers, merchants, and as an 
illustration of this facility, I may mention that when I 
was at Nussirabad, in Central India, in 1850, an 
officer, who had been ordered to join one of our 
newly-acquired stations in the Punjab, 1100 miles 
distant, was about to drive his wife there in a one- 
horse chaise, with as much nonchalance as if he were 
starting from Devonport for the midland counties in 
England. 

The Deccan, on the other hand, with its high 
table-land, with a sterile soil, in which the rock 
comes close to the surface, protruding itself through- 



THE CONCANS. 



7 



out the northerly portions in the step-shaped eleva- 
tions peculiar to the trap formation, while in the 
south granite predominates, and the process is seen 
almost visible to the eye whereby the decomposing 
agencies of nature are gradually rendering a mountain 
surface fit for the purposes of man,— the Deccan, with 
but scanty fall of annual rain, and rivers few in num- 
ber, finding their way to the coast in deep channels, 
and therefore unsuitable to irrigation, — the Deccan 
was not organised physically to take a lead among the 
nations, and its destiny has been to receive its civi- 
lisation from without. 

In the Concans, by which I include Malabar, 
Orissa, and the Carnatic, a wholly different nature 
prevails ; along these favoured strips, rich soil, heavy 
annual rains, and the drainage of the mountain 
ranges by which they are bounded, encourage a 
vegetation more varied, and, in parts, more abundant, 
than any Hindustan can offer. Moreover, its summer 
seas, and equable monsoon winds, offered channels of 
intercourse along the coast equally traversable with 
those of Northern India ; and here also we find early 
empires in Gujarat, in Malabar, in Coromandel, 
and Orissa, sending out their colonies and their civili- 
sation to other parts of the East. More inland, 
however, and approaching the magnificent ranges of 
the Ghats, especially on the western coast, nature 
has maintained her empire; primeval forest still 
clothes the sides and the valleys of these stupendous 
mountains ; the wild elephant, and almost wilder 
races of men, range undisturbed amongst them ; the 



8 



A BIKd's-EYE VIEW OE INDIA. 



most exquisite and romantic scenery greets the eye 
at every turn, and an enterprising traveller may still 
find many a district where no European has yet 
placed his foot. 



VINDHYA MOUNTAINS. 



CHAPTEE III. 



MOUNTAINS. 

Vindhya Mountains. — Aravulli. — Mount Abu. — The Ghats. — 
Western Ghats. — Himalayan. — India divisible into Zones. 

If I have succeeded in implanting in your minds 
some leading ideas as to the general configuration of 
India, — the north, -with its fertile, well-watered 
plains ; the south, with an elevated and sterile table- 
land, and rich Concans encompassing its base; I 
must call your attention to the different mountain 
ranges by which these clearly-marked natural 
divisions are separated from one another. 

The Vindhya system of mountains, with its various 
branches and the table-] and it supports on either 
side, deserves the particular attention of the Indian 
geographer. The main range of these mountains 
trends in a north-easterly direction from the Gulf of 
Cambay towards the Ganges, which they strike in the 
bold elevations known as the Eajmahal Hills. The 
great central table-land to the eastward, in which the 
Vindhyan Hills lose themselves, and where, about 
Omurkuntuk, the Sone running to the north-east, 
and the Nurbudda* running to the Gulf of Cambay, 

* From Naimada, (Sanscrit,) " the pleasure-giver." Lassen, Indisch. 
Alters, i. 87. 



10 



A BIRI^S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



have their sources, has been as yet unexplored by 
Europeans. Indeed, in this vast plateau, which 
to the north and east hangs over Bengal and Orissa, 
and to the south forms the northern extremity of the 
Deccan, it will be seen that in the best maps large 
blanks occur; and, in fact, in these wild districts, 
which usually pass under the name Gondwana, civili- 
sation never seems to have planted its foot. Wild 
tribes, such as Gonds, Koles, and Chohans, alone 
tenant their fastnesses ; and it is from, these localities 
that the sensitive ear of Europe is often shocked by 
the sound of human sacrifices. From this central 
table-land in the east, the Vindhya system, as it may 
be called, sends out three ranges towards the west, 
the most northerly of which only is called by Hindus 
the Yindhya, the next being the Satpura Mountains, 
which divide the Nurbudda from the Tapti, and the 
most southerly being the Mahadeo Hills. On the 
north-west of the Yindhya, a rather complicated 
system of mountains, with table-lands, exists, forming 
an extensive country of such marked characters as 
always to have received a distinct name, being called 
Madhya-Desa, or the midland counties, by old Hindu 
geographers, and Central India by the English. 

The range called the Aravulli, which in strictness 
belongs to the Yindhyan system, deserves a particular 
notice. It runs south and north between 24° and 
28° N.L. from the neighbourhood of Ahmedabad 
towards the banks of the Jumna near Delhi, and 
traverses the land of the Rajputs, those heroes of 
Hindu chivalry whose exploits and wild legends have 



MOUNT ABU. 



11 



been so worthily chronicled by the enthusiastic 
Colonel Tod. 

To their system belongs, although an outlying hill, 
Abu, most romantic of mountains, and holiest spot 
on earth in Hindu- Jain estimation ; whose summit, 
5000 feet high, is covered with exquisite vegetation, 
in which white and yellow jasmin and wild roses 
predominate, where every glen and knoll has its 
tradition and romance, and where the Jain temples of 
white marble offer examples of architectural decora- 
tion which, probably, are unequalled in the world for 
elaboration and costliness. The Aravulli, besides 
affording a nucleus round which the highland chiefs 
and clans forming the Rajput nations have developed 
themselves, and preserved their independence during 
thousands of years, plays also a most important part 
in Indian geography by opposing a physical barrier 
to the extension of the great desert which lies 
between the Indus and Hindustan. 

It will be seen, therefore, that the base line of the 
two triangles which I have spoken of, and which 
divides the plains of Hindustan from Central India 
and the Deccan, is no mere mountain ridge, like the 
Pyrenees, but a complicated mountain system, with 
various plateaus extending over a large surface of 
country. 

I have already mentioned that the table-land of 
Southern India is supported on the east and west by 
the mountains called Ghats, which are parallel to the 
sea on either coast ; but this general description is 
not strictly accurate, either as to the western or 



12 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



eastern range. For the Western Ghats, which spring 
from the banks of the Tapti in 21° N. L., in their 
course towards Cape Comorin are interrupted by a 
remarkable gap not more than fifteen miles wide, 
and which connects the lowlands at the mouth of the 
Caveri in the Bay of Bengal with the plains on the 
coast of Malabar. The Eastern Ghats, on the other 
hand, do not extend further south than 12° N.L. and 
the level country between the mountains and the sea 
called, though improperly, the Carnatic,^ expands into 
the fertile districts watered by the Caveri and Coleroon, 
and extends westward to the foot of a range of very 
lofty and little explored mountains which terminate 
the Western Ghats in their course from the gap at 
Ponany to Cape Comorin. 

Of these two ranges, the Western Ghats are by far 
the most distinctly marked; their elevation also is 
greater, attaining between 9000 and 10,000 feet in 
the group called the Nilghiries (or Blue Hills), more 
romantic in scenery, and, from their abrupt presen- 
tation towards the west, to which, in nautical phrase, 
they lie "steep to/' they form a more distinct 
natural boundary than the eastern range, which, with 
the whole plateau, as may be seen from its water- 
courses, is tilted up towards the west, and sinks 
down more insensibly to the level of the coast. 

I have now only left me the Himalayan Moun- 
tains, for I dismiss the Suleiman and Hala ranges 

* From Karnataka — " the land of the Kaiian,' 1 or Canarese ; but 
Canarese is the language of the table-land, or Deccan, and over the 
level lands of the Carnatic, Tamil is the language of the people. 



HIMALAYAH. 



13 



on the west of the Indus, as belonging more strictly, 
both in respect of the races who inhabit them and 
of the languages there spoken, to Persia than to 
India; and for the same reason, I pass over the 
mountain ridge which forms the backbone as it were 
of the Malay peninsula, for it is connected with races 
and civilisation wholly distinct from those of India, — 
viz,, the Chinese and Malay. But how to describe, in 
a brief sentence or two, the Himalayah, the most 
magnificent mountain range in the world ? To those 
who have wandered through hill countries, it is well 
known that no description, and even no picture, can 
convey an adequate idea of the feelings of awe and 
reverence which a grand mountain scene impresses 
on the mind. Transported on a sudden from the 
prosy levels of everyday life to sites where mortal 
foot " hath ne'er or rarely been/' the beholder finds 
himself face to face with nature in her wildest moods ; 
and on contemplating the gigantic forms, the death- 
like silence, the visions of beauty and grandeur 
around him, the most insensible mind expands under 
the influence of the locality, and warms into aspira- 
tions and yearnings for something sublimer, holier, 
lovelier, than anything yet met with on earth. Such 
at least were my feelings when, standing on a 
mountain ridge ten thousand feet high, I looked down 
on one side into the semi-tropical valley of Nepal, 
and on the other beheld the magnificent snowy range 
springing up at my feet, with Dewala-giri apparently 
within an easy walk, and the whole range occupying a 
sky-line in the horizon of nearly a third of a quadrant. 



14 



A BIKERS -EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



For many years it was a matter of controversy as 
to the site of the highest mountain in the world ; 
but no doubt now exists that the Himalayan 
contains many summits towering far above any other 
known elevation; and the late measurements of 
Dr. Hooker seem to crown Kanchanjunga as the 
monarch of mountains, with an elevation above the sea 
of more than five perpendicular miles (28,178 feet) 
In a general sketch of India, however, it is sufficient 
to note of the Himalayah that it acts as a complete 
barrier between India and the rest of continental 
Asia, dividing entirely the animal and vegetable 
kingdoms, and also the races of man who are to be 
found on either side of the chain. The country thus 
dissevered from the mass of Asia seems to owe chiefly 
to the Himalayah the fact of its having obtained a 
homogeneous character, which, notwithstanding the 
remarkable differences between plains and highlands 
which I have described, and the not less signal dis- 
tinction between the languages and races to be found 
in Northern and Southern India, has always presented 
to the w r orld a clear geographical idea under the term 
India ; although there is no trace in history of this 
country ever having been under the rule of any one 
power, and, indeed, it seems certain that the domi- 
nion of England approaches far nearer to a universal 
empire in India than any that has hitherto existed. 

It may be now seen that the grand natural fea- 
tures of India enable the country to be divided into 
several distinct zones, each having a character of its 
own. They may be enumerated as follows : — 



INDIA DIVISIBLE INTO ZONES. 



15 



1. The southern slope of the Himalayah, with the 
elevated valleys of Cashmire and Nepal. 

2. The Doabs* or land included between the Ganges 
and Jumna and the different rivers of the Panjab. 

3. The great Indian Desert. 

4. The valley of the Ganges as far as the Rajmahal 
Hills, forming Hindustan Proper. 

5. Central India, including Mewar, Malwa, Bun- 
delcund, and the Aravulli, with the Vindhya, and its 
associated and parallel ranges. 

6. Bengal, the lower part of which is subject to 
the inundation of the Ganges and Brahmaputra, and 
which, from its distinct character to Upper India, 
has always been treated by Hindu geographers as a 
separate country from Hindustan. 

7. Gujarat, which also has a well-marked cha- 
racter of its own, though its scenery, climate, pro- 
ductions, and abundance of water in pools or lakes, 
render it not dissimilar to Tirhut. 

8. The central, wild, and unexplored country 
called Gondwana, forming in mass part of the table- 
land to the south. 

9. The Deccan. 

10. The comparatively level lands between the 
east and west Ghats and the two seas called Orissa 
and the Carnatic in the Bay of Bengal, the Concans, 
Canara, and Malabar, in the Indian Ocean. 



* Literally, " two-waters, 1 ' from do quasi duo, two, and ah, water ; 
pa)tj ah, five waters, from panj, irei/re, five. 



16 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



CHAPTER IT. 



SUPPLY OF WATER. 
Monsoon Rains. — Setting in of the Monsoon. 

But to appreciate fully the appearance of India, 
the character of its productions, and the advantages 
it possesses over most other tropical countries, it is 
necessary to concentrate the attention on the supply 
of water which falls to its lot. It will be found that 
on the whole it is singularly fortunate in this respect; 
for though in the Deccan the supply is scanty, and 
in the Indian Desert almost null, still, when com- 
pared with other countries in the same latitude, such 
as Northern Australia and great parts of Africa, 
there does not appear to be any part of the world 
presenting such a large surface for production to the 
joint influence of a tropical sun and periodical rains. 
We are so used in England to the continued supply 
of rain during the year, and in our climate the rays 
of the sun have such little power, that we can but ill 
appreciate, without having seen it, what sun and 
water can effect in the torrid zone. 

Land in India, speaking generally, does not appear 
to be more fertile than in Europe, and it bears 
usually but one crop a year. But wherever the 
supply of water is copious, either from the inunda- 



MONSOON RAINS. 



17 



Hon of rivers, as in Lower Bengal, or from the 
retentive character of the soil, as in Gujarat, and 
Tirhut, or from the copious supply from the heavens, 
as in Malabar, there appears to be no limits to the 
productive qualities of the land. 

The greater part of India, all, in fact, except the 
Carnatic and southern portions of the Deccan, is 
watered during the south-west monsoon, or local trade- 
wind, which prevails in June, July, August, and 
September. Great differences, however, occur, both 
in the amount of rain that falls, and in the use that 
is made of it. At Bombay, for example, the amount 
of rain in the four months is about eighty inches, 
— on the mountain tops overhanging Bombay about 
two hundred and eighty inches fall during the same 
period, and twenty-four inches have been recorded 
during a single night (thirty-one inches being the 
average fall in England throughout the whole year) ; 
on the other hand, on the table-land above the moun- 
tains, the fall is not more than twenty-five to thirty 
inches ; the Western Ghats having acted as a wall on 
which the fury of the heavily charged water-clouds 
coming up from the south-west has expended itself. 
The eighty inches of rain, however, which fall on the 
Bombay coast are not equal in value to the fifty 
inches which fall in the Madras Carnatic, or to the 
thirty inches which fall in Gujarat. For the trap- 
rock which forms the substratum in Bombay and 
its adjoining coast does not lend itself to the con- 
struction of tanks, as the water is apt to escape 
along the joints and faults in the formation; 



18 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



whereas in the Carnatic, the soil being decomposed, 
granite possesses excellent holding qualities, and 
accordingly grand constructions in masonry for the 
retention of the annual supply, have marked the 
existence of every good government. In Gujarat, 
on the other hand, where there is a soil forty feet 
deep without a single pebble, and very little elevation 
above the sea, every drop of water that falls is stored 
by nature for future use, and the expenditure of a 
few shillings gives the thriving Gujarat farmer a 
well in every field. 

Such being the important part which water plays 
in India, it may easily be imagined with what interest 
the annual fall of rain is regarded ; for, like the rising 
of the Nile, the tropical rains are variable in their 
character ; but a short monsoon in India is famine, 
and if two dry seasons follow in succession as has 
occasionally happened, scenes of misery, and of wide- 
spread destruction of human life occur, such as no 
other part of the world ever witnesses. In the island 
of Bombay, in which I lived for nearly twelve years, 
six hundred thousand persons are congregated together, 
wholly dependent on the annual fall of rain, for there 
is not a single stream or spring in the island. To- 
wards the end of the dry season considerable distress 
is always felt by the poor, and the greater part of the 
day is spent by portions of their families in visiting 
one tank after another to obtain a scanty supply. 
Then it is that great engineering schemes are devised 
for aqueducts and waterworks ; philanthropists make 
suggestions; journalists are heard to thunder, and 



SETTING IN OF THE MONSOON. 



19 



the government sits benignant listening to plans and 
estimates, — but the annual rains at last make their 
appearance, and all is washed out and forgotten till 
the ensuing dry season. The setting in of the 
moonsoon, as it is called, or the commencement of 
the annual rains, is a grand meteorological phenome- 
non in Western India, and has often been described. 
In Bombay, towards the end of May, when the sun 
is nearly vertical, the sea-breeze from the west, which 
up to that time had blown strongly throughout the 
day, ceases, and either a languid air from the south, 
or more frequently a complete lull, prevails. The 
earth unrefreshed by a single shower for eight long 
months is bare of all vegetation, and even the palms 
which hug the sea-shore in dense profusion, pre- 
sent an adust drooping appearance affording no 
relief to the brown umber tint of the landscape. 
Towards sunset masses of clouds of gigantic and 
most varied forms are seen rolling up from the 
south in an upper current of the air, and settling 
themselves on the crest of the mountains. Some of 
them fleecy, sparkling, diaphanous, speak of deepest 
summer ; others highly charged with electricity, pre- 
sent the lurid hues so often precursors of a hurri- 
cane ; while mixed with these, gradually overwhelm- 
ing ~and enveloping them all is the storm-cloud, 
black, heavy, and portentous. Yivid flashes of light- 
ning, legible as the writing on the wall, play from 
one mountain summit to another; and an inex- 
perienced observer thinks that the long-looked for 
storm is imminent. But an hour or two clears 



20 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



the whole heavens, and one of those beautiful tropical 
nights succeeds, which, whether with the moon 
culminating straight over head, or with the brilliant 
constellations visible near the equator, offer visions 
of loveliness that I never see equalled in more 
northern latitudes. Evenings such as these occur 
for days and days together, affording at every sunset 
views of the mountain range, and of the neighbour- 
ing sea and land-locked harbour, unequalled at any 
other period of the year, and which, with their 
highest qualities of glowing tint and sharpness of 
outline, do not last more than ten minutes at a time 
in all the intensity of their beauty. At length the 
atmosphere becomes so completely charged with 
vapour that the catastrophe can no longer be delayed, 
and the burst commences. Sometimes, perhaps 
generally, with a violent thunder-storm; sometimes 
for I have observed many varieties of the commence- 
ment of the monsoon, with a gentle shower, which 
gradually increases until it assumes the character 
of a steady continuous down-pour, such as may be 
seen occasionally in southern Europe, but of which 
we have no experience in England. In a few days 
the whole face of nature assumes a different hue; 
the brown parched appearance so characteristic of 
the East during a great portion of the year, yields to 
tints of the tenderest green, and vegetation shoots 
forth in every form, and in most unexpected loca- 
lities. 



CLIMATE. 



21 



CHAPTER V. 



CLIMATE. 
India approached from the Sea. 

The annual fall of rain is closely connected with 
the climate of India, for the rainy season forms by far 
the most distinct change in the weather, which pre- 
vails during other portions of the year. 

There are usually three seasons assigned to India, 
the hot, the cold, and the rainy ; but this is not a 
very correct division. Coldish weather, it is true, 
prevails for some months in Upper India, and even in 
such low latitudes as Calcutta and Bombav broadcloth 
is willingly adopted instead of cottons and calicoes 
during December and January; still, in most parts of 
India, there is a hot season both before and after the 
rains, and in the South no cold season can be said to 
exist. Such as it is, however, I do not hesitate to 
pronounce that the Indian climate is one of the most 
enjoyable in the world; too hot no doubt for a restless 
Anglo-Saxon temperament, but yet not sufficiently hot 
to repress as energetic action and as unremitting 
attention, either to duty or to sport, as England's 
sons exhibit in any portion of the globe. But for the 
natives of the soil, when I look at the general 
salubrity of the climate, the facility with which the 



22 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



necessaries, and, in the simple diet of the Hindu, even 
the luxuries of life are procurable, the absence of 
all those carking cares which the want of fuel, of 
sufficient clothing, and of warm well-ventilated 
dwellings occasions in colder latitudes, I have often 
thought that there is no region on earth, where a 
poor man's lot may be cast more happily than in 
India. 

When the leading facts, as to the elevation of 
different parts of India above the sea, and as to the 
diffusion and supply of water, are fully appreciated, 
it is not difficult to form in the mind sufficiently 
accurate pictures of the general appearance of the 
country, or to understand its varied productions. A 
European traveller usually first strikes the coast of 
India, either at Bombay, or at Point de Galle in 
Ceylon, which is truly an Indian island, or at Madras 
or Calcutta. Each of these has a different character 
of its own. The sea-coast of Ceylon, and especially 
its south-west point, Galle, is essentially a land of 
Palms, and there are few landscapes more striking 
and lovely than the dense mass of cocoa-nut and 
palmyra-trees which are to be seen from all the little 
eminences round the quaint old Dutch town of Point 
de Galle, waving to and fro in the wind in graceful 
undulations, and awakening in the mind the idea of a 
sea of vegetation. Ceylon, however, in colouring and 
general appearance, is wholly unlike other parts of 
India. As an island near the Equator its climate is 
moist throughout the year, and, in consequence, vege- 
tation of all kinds, but especially tree-vegetation, is 



INDIA APPROACHED FROM THE SEA. 



always vigorous. The nucleus of the island is moun- 
tainous, and round the celebrated Adam's Peak, 
clearly visible from the sea, European colonists have 
latterly pitched their tents, and the primseval forests 
which dotted the mountain sides, with the wild elephants 
who tenant them in vast numbers, are gradually dis- 
appearing before the vigorous onslaught of English 
coffee-planters. If the Indian coast is struck at 
Madras a level shore is approached with but the 
gentle elevation of the Pulicat Hills in the back 
ground— for the Eastern Ghats are not visible from 
the sea. Bright houses along the shore, and the 
bustling Hindu population with their picturesque 
attire in which, as throughout India, purples and 
reds and other positive colours relieve the predo- 
minating white of their garments, stand out against 
the sombre, grey, local colouring of the scene. The 
approach to Calcutta is through the dismal Sunder- 
bunds, as the low lands just emerging above the water 
at the mouths of the Ganges are termed— a produc- 
tion of the river, which every year brings down 
millions of tons of alluvial deposit, soon to form new 
islands or continents. No enthusiast for the pictur- 
esque, even after a four months' voyage, can detect any 
trace of loveliness in these low swamps, where the 
land and water seem contending for empire ; but so 
soon as the steamer has hit the true mouth of the 
river, and with a flowing tide runs up to Calcutta at 
the rate of twenty miles an hour, the English voyager 
is lapped in delight at witnessing a verdure which 
equals, garden-houses and magnificent trees which 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OP INDIA. 



surpass, those of his own Thames and Fatherland 
Bombay, and the whole of the Malabar coast, as I have 
already intimated, has the mountain range very near, 
sometimes quite close to the sea, and consequently they 
present a finer sky line and more picturesque scenery 
than any other point of access to the Indian 
continent. 



PRODUCTIONS OF INDIA. 



25 



CHAPTER VI. 



PRODUCTIONS. 

Productions of India. — - Tin. — Cinnamon. — Ophir of Scripture.— 
Pepper and Spices. — Cotton. — Sugar. — Oranges. — Pearls. — 
Diamonds. — Gems of Ceylon. — Localities of precious Products. 
— Cinnamon.- — Cardamoms. — Teak. — Cotton Zone. — Food of 
Inhabitants. 

In taking a general view of India, it is interesting 
to note the chief productions which have attracted 
the attention and cupidity of the Western world, and 
the spots from which they have been derived. Pepper, 
cotton, indigo (i. e. Indicum), sugar, precious stones, 
sandal wood, cassia, cinnamon, tin, appear to have 
found their way to Europe from India at the earliest 
period; and some of them are mentioned, with their 
Indian names, even in Homer and the Bible. 

The earliest name of the British Isles, the Kassi- 
terides, is clearly derived from the Sanscrit word Kastira 
for tin, which is still found in India, and which 
must have been an article of commerce long before 
those exploring traders the Phoenicians sought new 
supplies of it in distant islands of the West. 

In the oil of holy ointment mentioned in Exodus, 
(1490, B.C.) cinnamon and cassia appear just as they do 
in Herodotus, who also distinguished between the true 
cinnamon laurel and the cassia; and thus we have 



26 



A BIRD'S-EYE YIEW OF INDIA. 



traces of an active trade carried on fifteen hundred years 
before Christ between India and the West, probably 
by the Phoenicians, who, we learn, were originally 
settled in islands at the mouth of the Persian Gulf 
before they betook themselves to the shores of the 
Mediterranean. But perhaps the most interesting 
facts connected with the intercourse between India 
and the West at an early period of history are those 
which relate to the costly products imported by King 
Solomon, once every three years, by his Tarshish fleet, 
at his port of Ezion-geber, "on the shore of the Red 
Sea." It had long ago been remarked by scholars 
that the ivory, apes, peacocks, precious stones, and 
sandal wood, spoken of in Chronicles and the Book 
of Kings, which Solomon imported with the assist- 
ance of his ally King Hiram, and introduced into 
Judea by the aid of experienced Phoenician crews, were 
Indian products; some of them, such as peacocks 
and sandal wood, being peculiar to that country. 

But the orientalists and geographers of the present 
day, with the increased knowledge of philology which 
marks the age, have brought forward very plausible 
arguments, principally founded on the foreign names 
of the articles mentioned in the Bible, to show that 
the Ophir of Solomon was in the land of the 
Abhirs, in Lower Sindh, or Gujarat, who are still 
known as a race in India.* A similar emporium for 

* Ritter, Erdkunde Asiens VIII. ii. 348, has devoted a long essay 
to the proof that Ophir was situated near the mouths of the Indus, a 
theory which was first started by Lassen. See Indische Alther. I. 
552, II. 538. Still, on looking at the principal facts on which the 



PEPPER AND SPICES. 



27 



the export of the products of India to Europe no 
doubt existed in the first century after Christ in 
Gujarat, viz., at Barygaza (the modern Broach), on 
the Nurbudda, when it was visited by the author of 
the Periplus of the Red Sea ascribed to Arrian. 

Pepper, ginger, cardamoms, and cinnamon, are the 
principal spices which India supplies, and they formed 
for many centuries the chief sources of the wealth 
which European traders with the East derived from 
that country. Pliny mentions the price at which 
pepper was sold at Rome in his time, from which it 
appears that 1600 per cent, was added to its original 
cost price in Malabar. It is curious to observe, with 
reference to pepper and some other products, consi- 
dered indispensable in civilized society, how com- 
pletely they have been introduced into universal 
consumption within historical and therefore within 
comparatively modem limits. In a very interesting 
account of the pepper trade which is given in the 
work of my relative Mr. Crawfurd on the Indian 
Archipelago, he computes that fifty million pounds | 
is the annual consumption of mankind ; while in the 
days of Cato, probably not a single peppercorn found | 
its way to Europe. So with sugar. The Greeks only 

theory is based, viz., that the articles imported at a port of the Red Sea 
have all Indian names, it would seem that the only unquestionable 
Indian word is Koph, Heb., from Kapi, Sansc. for ape. India, it may be 
observed, has no true apes, but probably the translators of the Bible 
did not distinguish in that day between ape and monkey, and pos- 
sibly the Hebrew language, like French, Italiau, and German, has no 
terms to distinguish between ape and moukey. Cotton, however, and 
tin undoubtedly appear in the Bible with Sanscrit names. 



A BIRTHS-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



became acquainted with true sugar on the occasion 
of Alexander's expedition into India; and it does not 
appear to have come into general use or to have 
superseded the sweetening material, honey, then used by 
the Greeks and Romans, till some centuries later. But 
tobacco is the most remarkable example of all; for 
we can trace its origin most clearly to the discovery 
of America ■ yet now the plant with its American 
name is found in all parts of the world suitable to 
its growth, and nowhere more luxuriant or more 
appreciated than in India. 

The Sanscrit names by which rice, cotton, and 
sugar were first made known to Europe, and other 
indications of their diffusion to the eastward, seem to 
show that India was the centre from which they 
first emanated, and it is certainly to their cultivation 
in India that Europe owes these inestimable produc- 
tions. I do not recollect whether rice is mentioned 
in the Bible, but cotton certainly appears there with 
its Indian name, Karpas,* as it does in Greek and 
Eoman writers; its modern name in Europe appears 
to be derived from the Arabic Kutn. 

Sugar, which to the present day is called Sakar in 
Indian vernacular languages, is first mentioned by its 
Sanscrit name in a European work by the intelligent 
Greek trader who wrote the Periplus of the Red Sea, 
in the first century of our a3ra, and who enumerates 
among the products brought to Egypt from Broach 

* Sanscrit, Karpdsa ; Hebrew, Karpas; Greek, Kapiravos ; Latin, 
Carbasus; modem Hindi, Eapdss. See Lassen, I. 250, Rovle, 82. 



ORANGES AND PEARLS. 



29 



"the cane honey which is called sakcharL* In many 
other tropical countries the sugar cane had been made 
to render its juice for the use of man, but there is 
good ground for believing that it was Hindu ingenuity 
which discovered the processes by which with the 
applications of crushing, boiling, and refining, crys- 
tallised sugar is obtained. 

Oranges are also said to be indigenous in India, 
and certainly the Portuguese introduced them to 
Europe with their Eastern name Narang, or Naranja, 
to become orange in French and English. But though 
I have found them in the heart of a Ceylon forest, 
and bearing rich fruit, they were evidently planted 
there by man, and I have never seen them anywhere 
sufficiently numerous or vigorous in India to impress 
one with the idea that they were native to the soil. 
As to precious stones, for which India is so cele- 
brated, until lately the Gulf of Manaar, between 
Ceylon and Cape Comorin, supplied the finest 
oriental pearls, but a governor of Ceylon, some years 
ago, in his desire to prepare a flattering budget, and 
to equalise his revenue and expenditure, made so 
clean a sweep of the oyster-beds, that to this day 
scarcely a pearl has since that period rewarded the 
exertions of the Cingalese pearl-divers. Until the 
discovery of America, India was the only known 
locality in which diamonds were found, and the mines 
of Golconda have justified their world-wide repu- 
tation by having yielded the finest gems which are 



* Kai fie\i to Kakapwov to heyopsvov (rdfcx^pi. Periplus III., 
cited in Lassen I. 



30 A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



known to exist. Few diamonds of value, however, 
are now found in India, and of the twenty diamond 
beds which the jeweller Tavernier saw at work in 
1669, near the Hill Fort of Golconda on the Kristna 
river in the Deccan, all are deserted but two or 
three, and the remainder are so completely forgotten 
in the neighbourhood that it is difficult to ascertain 
even their sites. The diamond zone extends from 
the east side of the peninsula of India, above the 
Pennaar river, across the Kristna and Godaveri, to 
the bed of the Ganges, crossing the Sone in 
25° N.L., and including portions of the plateau of 
Bundelcund, as far as Panna and Kallinger * The 
peculiarity attending diamonds seems to be that they 
are always found in a characteristic formation, which 
is now called diamond sand, and which is a modern 
alluvial deposit amongst primitive rocks, forming, in 
geological language, a conglomerate of rounded pebbles 
or sandstone breccia, and consisting, according to 
Voysey, of a beautiful mixture of red and yellow 
jasper, quartz, chalcedony and hornblende of diffe- 
rent colours, bound together by a quartzose cement. 
But in point of quantity no land on earth seems to 
equal Ceylon in the production of precious stones. 
The finest oriental rubies and sapphires are occasion- 
ally found there; but inferior specimens of these 
gems, and of opals, of moonstone or adularia, and of 
topaz are found in such quantities, that I learnt 

* Ritter has collected all the information extant relating to the 
diamonds of India in an interesting monograph, Erdkunde Asiens 
b. IV. ah. ii. p. 343. 



LOCALITIES OF PRECIOUS PRODUCTS. 31 



on the spot that they were sold at a shilling a 
pound. They are of course not serviceable as gems, 
but are used in commerce to be ground down as dust 
for jewellers' purposes. 

On taking a general view of the costliest produc- 
tions of India, it is remarkable to observe how limited 
the localities are in which they are found. The same 
observation, it is true, may be made of European 
products. Thus the zone for the finest wheat is to 
be found in a band stretching from Dantzic to the 
Ukraine. Hops are said to flourish, they certainly are 
cultivated only in Kent, Sussex, Surrey, parts of Hamp- 
shire, Hereford, and Worcestershire. The finest wines 
of France and Germany, the Chateau Lafitte and the 
Johannesberger of Prince Metternich, are produced 
from vineyards which present no appreciable dif- 
ferences either in soil or exposure to adjoining 
grounds, where wines of most inferior quality can 
only be obtained. But it is in India, and in the 
spice islands of the Indian Archipelago, that this 
class of facts stands out most prominently. Cinna- 
mon, for example, only flourishes to perfection in 
Ceylon and in a very small portion of the island on 
the south-west side near Colombo. Up to 1770, the 
bark of this species of laurel was obtained only from 
trees growing wild ; but since that period, the cin- 
namon laurel has been cultivated with success in 
gardens near Colombo, where it may be seen growing 
near the sea in perfectly white sand, containing no 
less than 95 per cent, of pure silex. Pepper* flourishes 

* Pepper (piper nigrum, Pliny, H. N. xii. 14) ; pippali, Sanscrit; 



32 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA . 



only on the sides of the western mountains on the 
Malabar coast, where it is found wild in all the 
jungles, though it is only the cultivated plant which 
bears fruit. The pepper vine seems indifferent to 
soil, so that it meets with the other conditions in its 
own native climate which are essential to its exist- 
ence • ^ and the villagers who cultivate it train the 
plant indifferently on whatever trees they find most 
abundant about their dwellings; but the jack-tree 
(Artocarpus integrifolia), the mango (if. mangifera), 
and a species of mulberry (Morinda citrifolia), are 
the most frequently used for the purpose. In the 
same jungles, cardamoms (also growing wild, and this 
plant does not lend itself to cultivation), sandal- 
wood, and teak— the Indian oak {Tectonia grandis), 
occur, — the two former along this range only, and 
indeed in very limited portions of it; and the 
teak, though it is found in vast forests in Java, 
Aracan, and Pegu, only flourishes in India in 
Southern Malabar, where it reaches elevations of 
3000 or 4000 feet, and disappears gradually as the 
range approaches Bombay and the North Concan. 
In these latter localities, however, teak is found of 
excellent quality and shape for those purposes of 
ship-building in which crooked timber or knees are 
required. To carry these inquiries a little further, it 
may be observed that the cotton zone of India is 
principally confined to the southern division, which 

hence pepe, Italian ; poivre, French ; pfeffer, German ; in Hindi, 
mirch, from the Sanscrit mercha, whence the mariha of the Javanese 
Ritter, XII. i. 865. 



COTTON ZONE. 



I have described as the Deccan; and, remarkably 
enough, the finest qualities are produced in localities 
of very different elevation, namely, in the low-lands 
a little above the level of the sea in Gujarat, and in 
the high table- lands of the southern Maratha 
country and Berar. So again with the opium poppy ; ) 
it is only grown to any extent in Malwa, which is a 
table-land some 1800 feet above the sea, covered 
with a rich black soil, and in the alluvial lands about 
Patna on the Ganges, which are scarcely elevated 
above the annual inundation from the river. The 
plant producing indigo is only cultivated in Tirhut, \ 
though the climate, soil, fall of rain, and general 
appearance of Gujarat, appear to resemble Tirhut 
and upper Bengal in all particulars, as I have before 
indicated. All these phenomena show that there are 
still many facts to be ascertained which have been so 
subtle as hitherto to elude observation • but which, 
when brought within the domain of science, will 
probably, like other truths, yield ample fruit in con- 
tributions to the mass of human enjoyment. 

I may dismiss the subject of productions in India 
by pointing out the fallacy which describes rice as 
the principal food of its inhabitants. That beautiful 
cereal, however, only flourishes under conditions 
which the greater part of India does not furnish, for it 
requires to be under water during the greater part of 
the four months that it is connected with the earth. 
It is only in low-lands, therefore, which can be inun- j 
dated by rivers, or where the annual rains are heavy 
enough to afford a constant watery coverlet, that rice 



34 



A BIKdVe^E VIEW 0E INDIA. 



is produced, and in such lands it grows for thousands 
of years, sometimes affording two crops in the year, 
without manure. In Gujarat, Upper India, or Hin- 
dustan, rice gives way to wheat and barley as the 
bread-corn of the people, and in the sterile Deccan 
the coarser pulses, and a species of millet (Corocawius 
eleusyne) form the principal food of its inhabitants. 



THE ELEPHANT. 



35 



CHAPTER VII. 

ANIMALS. 

The Elephant.— The Tiger.— Indian Lion.— Wild Ass. 

In a lecture which aims at giving a bird's-eye 
view of the principal objects meeting the eye in 
India, a word or two is required as to its most charac- 
teristic animals. These, without doubt, are the 
elephant and tiger. Nothing, I think, more forcibly 
impresses on the mind the fact that India, although 
one of the oldest seats of civilisation in the world, 
has not yet been wholly brought under the domi- 
nion of man, than to find large districts of the 
country solely peopled as it were by wild elephants. 
Their habitats in India are the teak and sandal forests 
on the Malabar coast, from which herds occasion- 
ally come up into the Bombay Presidency through 
the Canara jungles ; the saul forests (SAorea rohusta) 
which clothe the belt called the Terai, lying at the 
foot of the Himalayan ; Tipperah, Aracan, and thence 
to the eastward Pegu, Cochin- China, and Siam. Some 
of the large Indian islands also, such as Ceylon, 
Sumatra, and Borneo, possess them in abundance. 
Elephants were more numerous, however, in India, in 
quite recent times, as Akbar met a wild herd on his 
march from Malwa to Agra, a district in which they are 

d 2 



86 A BIRD'S -EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



now never found. The Asiatic elephant,** like so much 
else belonging to the East, was first made known to 
Europe by Alexander the Great, who encountered 
and captured fifteen of them with their Indian 
mahouts or drivers at the battle of Arbela, in the 
army of Darius. On his return to Babylon from the 
Indus he took with him three hundred elephants, 
and from that period they were used most largely in 
Eastern warfare, and their employment decided the 
issue of many a pitched battle. It would appear that 
most of the war elephants used in ancient Europe 
belonged to the Asiatic variety, which is known to be 
a distinct species from the African congener, but it 
is supposed that the Carthaginians, having learned 
the art of catching and taming wild elephants from 
the Hindus, employed in their wars African elephants, 
which, in the days of Hanno and Hannibal, were 
plentiful in Mauritania, the modern Morocco, though 
long extinct there. At this day, however, the African 
elephant, who is only found in Southern Africa and 
in Abyssinia, is never seen in a tame state, though 
there is some trace, from missionary accounts, of 
elephants being used at Degombah in Central Africa, 
and Bitter, t notices the usage, as a relic, either of 

* Philologers have been much puzzled hitherto to trace the Iudian 
root of the European word eAe^as or elephant. Lassen suggests that 
it comes from the Sanscrit word for ivory, ibhadanta, with the Arabic 
article al prefixed, alibliadanta, but this is not very satisfactory. 
May not the word still used by the Cingalese for elephant, all and 
danta, tooth, be the term by which the elephant was first known by 
European traders ? 'EAe^as is used by Homer for ivory only, and 
Herodotus is the first who applied it to the animal. See I Lassen 
I. A., 314. f Erdkunde Asiens IV. i. 905. 



WIDE RANGE OP THE TIGER. 



37 



Carthaginian customs, or as preserved through tradi- 
tions derived from Egypt under the Ptolemies. 

The tiger, the royal Bengal tiger, is so well known 
as typical of India, that it would be needless to ex- 
pend many words on this magnificent carnivor. He 
is to be found in all parts of India, and in all coun- 
tries to the eastward, as far as China ; he is rarely 
seen to the west of the Indus, though he occurs occa- 
sionally at Mazanderan at the south-east angle of the 
Caspian Sea. The tiger is found also in great abun- 
dance in Sumatra and Java, though strangely enough 
not in Ceylon. A tiger was killed in Bombay shortly 
before I arrived there in 1841, having swam across an 
arm of the sea, and they are numerous in the adjoin- 
ing island of Salsette. Although this animal seems 
in all his habits only suited to hot climates, and to 
have his home emphatically in swampy tropical jungles 
like those of Bengal, it is interesting to note what a 
very wide range he takes to the northward. Tigers 
undistinguishable in specific characters from those of 
India, are found in Siberia, in 53 N. and all 
over Central Asia, but to this day naturalists have 
been unable to divine the manner in which they have 
been able to pass the snowy barriers of the Himalaya!], 
and of the other mountain ranges intervening between 
Siberia and India. 

Two other animals are also found in India, which 
are interesting as relics of expiring races, and from 
being mentioned so frequently in the Bible — the wild 
ass, and the lion — and I was fortunate enough to be 

* See Ritter IV. ii. p. 690. 



38 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



able to procure living specimens of botli of these 
animals. The Indian lion is very different in appear- 
ance from his congener in Africa, though the intelli- 
gent secretary of the Zoological Society, Mr. Mitchell, 
does not consider him to be a distinct species. There 
seems little doubt that it was this variety of lion 
which is so much spoken of in Scriptural history, and 
which occurred in Syria, Palestine, and Mesopo- 
tamia, as also in Macedonia, in the time of Herodotus. 
But its disappearance from all those countries has 
been so complete, and its existence in India so little 
known till lately, that even Cuvier limited the present 
zone of the lion to Africa only, and to small portions 
of Asia about the Euphrates. Our Indian sports- 
men, however, have tracked out their haunts, and I 
have heard of so many as six in one day falling to 
the gun of a single sportsman in Cattyawar. At the 
foot of Abu I found traces of lions mixed with those 
of tigers, and this is the only locality, I believe, where 
these monarchs of the forest are to be found in joint 
tenancy. The fine pair of lions now in the Zoological 
Gardens in London, I obtained from the Nawab of 
Bhaunug-gur, through the influence of my distin- 
guished friend, Lieutenant Colonel Le Grand Jacob, 
and though they yield in mane to the well-known 
lions of Africa, they are equal, I think, if not superior 
in size, vigour, and activity. 

The wild ass of India is to be found on that 
singular tract of country called the Run of Cutch, 
an emerged sea basin and sandy desert, scarcely now 
elevated above the level of the sea. They are also 



WILD ASS. 



39 



found in a very different locality, the southern side of 
the Himalayahs, for the skin of one I saw at the 
Residency in Nepal appeared to me to present no 
distinguishable characters from those I have met with 
in Western India. The fleetness of the Cutch wild 
ass is prodigious ; and I have been assured by sports- 
men who have attempted to ride them down with 
their fastest Arab horses, that it is impossible to do 
so unless the animal had received some previous hurt 
or injury. These animals leave the desert Bun 
during the night, and approach the limits of cultiva- 
tion, "searching," in the words of the inspired 
writer, " after every green thing ; " and it is at this 
period that Indian sportsmen lie in wait, in 
order " to get a spear " at them in their gallop back 
to the desert* I dare say my allusion to Job has 
recalled the fine description of the wild ass to 
memory; but it is so singularly accurate, and 
indicates with such precision "the barren land" 
and the mountain range in which these animals are 
found in India, that its insertion in a sketch of 
India seems appropriate. 

" Who hath sent out the wild ass free ? or who hath loosed the hands 
of the wild ass ? 

Whose house I have made the wilderness, and the barren land his 
dwelling. 

He scorneth the multitude of the city, neither regardeth he the crying 
of the driver. 

The range of the mountains is his pasture, and he searcheth after every 
green thing." 

I would only add, in allusion to the cries of the 
driver, that the wild ass of India has hitherto proved 
untameable. 



40 



A BIRD's-EYE VIEW OP INDIA. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

END OF FIRST LECTURE. 
I hate now touched upon as many general topics 
as I could well introduce within a single lecture • and 
I feel very sensibly that I have been compelled to' treat 
them so superficially as to frustrate the purpose I had 
m view, of giving a vivid, general idea of India. 
But this difficulty, I find, attends a lecturer who 
takes a large subject in hand; if he attempts to give 
new information, he necessarily becomes didactic and 
prosy, which is insufferable ; for a dull book is always 
preferable to a dull lecture : if, on the other hand, he 
merely generalises, and studies form rather than 
substance, he is generally vague, and he sends his 
audience away little more instructed than they were 
before the lecture began. What I have attempted 
has been to supply a want which Dr. Arnold 
describes he constantly experienced when reading of 
foreign lands— namely, some general notions as to 
the appearance, profile, and colouring of the country 
I have endeavoured to point out distinctly the cha- 
racter of the surface by which India is diversified 
and which, under the three divisions of Plains' 
Table lands, and Mountains, gives so much variety to 
the country and its productions. I have also noted 
the chief natural products which have made the name 



END OF FIRST LECTURE. 



41 



of India celebrated in story, but I Have omitted to 
say a word as to the inhabitants of these wide realms, 
for even in a bird's eye view of India they require a 
lecture to themselves. 



42 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OP INDIA. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Inhabitants of India. — Their numbers. — Hindus. — Mussalmans. — 
Parsis. — Jews, &c. — Importance of Hindu Element. 

In round numbers, the inhabitants of India, in- 
cluding the districts latest ceded from Burmah, may- 
be safely stated at 160,000,000.* It is usually 
estimated that a sixth or seventh of the population 
are Mussalmans, the descendants of the conquering 
races who have successively established themselves in 
India since the first invasion of Mahomet of Ghuzni, 
a.d. 1001. I conceive, however, that this proportion 
is exaggerated. There are also to be included in this 
estimate sections of several immigrant races, such 
as Parsis, who, flying from Mussalman persecution 
in their native country, took refuge in India in 
considerable numbers, about a.d. 7 85 ; Jews, who 
are also to be found in numerous villages, all along 
the coast from Bombay to Cochin, and who, by the 
inquiries of the missionaries, seem to have established 
themselves in India previous to our era, besides 

* The returns laid before the House of Commons in 1852 esti- 
mate the population at 151,940,170. But in this return only four 
millions are allowed to the Punjab, whereas by accounts furnished me 
from the Board of Control, it would appear that the population cannot 
be less than double, and probably amounts to ten millions. The 
cessions from Burmah also are not included. 



THE HINDUS. 



43 



Armenians, Portuguese, and native Christians, to 
all of whom the tolerant spirit of the Hindu, and the 
unsocial system of cast afford a freer scope for the 
preservation of their religious views, and for the 
maintenance of their blood and customs, than any 
other form of society has presented. 

The Hindus, however, form such a very large 
majority of the population, and Hindu views and 
habits of thought so much predominate, even more 
than might be expected from their relative numbers, 
that all general considerations as to India ought 
to keep Hindus chiefly in view. Sir James Mackin- 
tosh was led to observe, some time after taking his 
seat on the Bombay Bench that a long residence in 
the East tended to Brahminize the minds even of 
Englishmen, and during the many years in which I 
unworthily occupied his place on the same tribunal, 

1 was daily led to observe when the disputes of 
different casts came before me, that an unmistakeable 
Hindu tint diffused itself over all. Parsis, Moguls 
(i. e. Persians"*), Affghans, Israelites, and Christians 
who have been long settled in India, seem to sur- 
render their ancient patrimony of ideas, and to 
receive implicitly the opinions, prejudices, and con- 
clusions of Hindu civilization. And it is observable 
that it is only the Hindu race which really flourishes 

* It is strange to find the term Mogol applied to Persian as it is 
universally in Western India ; but the term is applicable to tint, not 
to race. The Mussalmans who invaded India from the north were 
called indiscriminately Mogols ; and, being lighter in hue than the 
Mussalmans of India, the same term is applied to Persians. (See 

2 Elphinstone's India, p. 94.) 



44 a. BIHD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



m India; Greeks, Indo- Scythians, Afghans, Moguls 
or Turks,* and Portuguese have successively founded 
dynasties, but in a few generations each has withered 
away to give place either to a fresh race of invaders, 
or to some dynasty of native origin. So far as we 
can penetrate the gloom which occurs in authentic 
Indian history, between the dynasty of Greek princes 
left by Alexander in the Punjab, and the Maho- 
metan invasion, a period of about 1350 years, we 
find native princes of Hindu origin, principally 
Rajputs, occupying different Indian thrones, and 
there are good reasons for believing that under 
several of their princes, such as Ashoka, Yikrama- 
ditya and Salivahana better government existed, and 
native literature, with other indications of progressive 
civilisation made themselves more conspicuous than 
at any other period either before or since. It is 
indeed a consideration well worthy of impressing 
itself on the minds of Indian statesmen, that the 
Hindu element has always exhibited sufficient vitality 
to develop itself with vigour whenever a favourable 
opportunity has occurred. Some historians, such as 
Dr. Arnold, have conceived that when once a nation 
has lost its independence, it never again can rally 
from within, but requires for its resuscitation fresh 
blood, fresh energies, fresh ideas, such only as foreign 
invaders can introduce. This certainly has not been 
the case in India. Whenever a foreign dynasty 

* Bdber was a Turk, not a Mogol, and the empire founded by him 
should properly have borne the former, not the latter name. * (See 
Erskine's Life of Baber.) 



ORIGIN OF HINDUS. 



45 



has become effete, or government disorganised, a 
native power has sprung up to replace it. Imme- 
diately after the death of Alexander, although he 
established a powerful dynasty in the north-west, 
the disputes among his lieutenants enabled Chandra- 
gupta (the Sandracottus of the Greeks) to found a 
mighty kingdom on the Ganges.* In later times 
the Rajputs, who have been well called the Normans 
of India, were enabled, though we know not by what 
process, to possess themselves of most of the native 
thrones of India from the Himalayan Mountains to 
Cape Comorin. On the breaking up of the Mogul 
empire, Sivaji with his hardy Marathas founded a 
dynasty which became all-powerful. The Gorhkas 
at the end of the last, and commencement of the 
present century, would undoubtedly have added to 
their rule the wide plains of Hindustan and Bengal, 
if the British power had not been too strong for 
them. And in our own day, Ranjit Sing established 
a force and an organisation which even under his 
feeble successors, and incompetent generals, proved 
no unworthy match for the English Government, 
and which but for this obstacle would easily have 
mastered the whole of India. 

The Hindus, according to the best opinions of the 
day, are divisible into tw r o great races, the Aryan, 
and Turanian, or Tamil. The latter are supposed to 
be the aborigines of the country, and are found chiefly 
in the peninsula, of which they form the bulk of the 
population, and in various wild and mountainous 

* Auctor libertatis Sandracottus fuerat. Justin. XV., iv. 12. 



46 



A Blftf/S -EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



localities, to which, like the Basques of Spain and the 
Welsh and Highlanders of Great Britain, they retired 
before invading races. The Aryans are supposed to 
have entered India from the north-west, and to have 
brought with them the Sanscrit language, the Hindu 
religion, and other elements of civilization. The amal- 
gamation of the two races, however, has been so com- 
plete, that although the ethnological distinction of 
language still remains very conspicuous, and although, 
of course, as with all casts in India, no admixture of 
blood has taken place with other races ; the southern 
or Tamil population of the peninsula are usually cited 
as the best types of existing Hindu life and charac- 
ter. I have collected and thrown into an Appendix 
the principal facts which have been ascertained as to 
the distribution and sources of the languages of 
India ; but there is still much which remains to be 
learnt. Where did the Aryan or Sanscrit-speaking 
race come from ? We see that they were closely 
connected with the Zend-speaking, Greek-speaking, 
Latin-speaking, German-speaking, Slavonic-speaking, 
races, not at all with the Arabic, Phenician, and 
Hebrew families. Shall we ever get more informa- 
tion as to this early connection? Again, in the 
Sanscritoid languages of Aryan India, above a third 
part, it has been estimated, is traceable neither to 
Sanscrit, nor other known source. Does this imply 
another aboriginal race who have not yet been 
accounted for ? Lastly, are the Brahmans connected 
in blood with the race called Aryan, or are they the 
only true Aryans who have impressed their type on 



PUKE BLOOD OF B RAHMANS. 



47 



the nation ? We know that, for as far back as we 
can trace, the Brahmans have intermarried with one 
another only, and we may safely assert that they 
have preserved their purity of blood, and distinctness 
of race, at all events free of any intermixture with 
the mass of the nation, or Sudras, for at least three 
thousand years. These are mere speculations, but 
they are fraught with interest to many minds. 



48 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



CHAPTER X. 

Early Civilisation of India.-jEra of Chdndragnpta,— Account of 
Buddha.— Date of Vedas. 

The chief interest of India arises, I think, from 
the great antiquity and from the self-development of 
its civilisation. In Europe, we form as it were one 
family, and our thoughts and actions are moulded in 
types common to us all, and transmitted through our 
forefathers from the Greeks and Romans. Hindu 
civilisation, on the other hand, is wholly indigenous; 
and every social problem which it has been called 
upon to solve has been worked out on independent 
grounds and by independent trains of thought. 
Hence it is that every day's experience with Hindu 
life brings to light new customs and ideas, different 
from (often discordant with) those of Europe; but 
which cannot surely be judged of correctly when 
measured by a mere European standard, and which, 
to a philosophic eye, are always of surpassing interest, 
as exemplifying various modes arrived at by mankind 
for the ordinance of human life. Of the early states 
of antiquity who took the lead in civilisation— India, 
Egypt, Phenicia, Assyria, Greece— all but the first 
have disappeared from history; but India, which 
perhaps may vie with any of them in intellectual 



GREEKS IN INDIA. 



49 



culture at the earliest period, is probably as flourish- 
ing now as it was in the days of Abraham. As 
general statements respecting early civilisation convey 
only vague ideas, it may be well to devote a few 
words as to what is actually known in authentic 
history, respecting Indian antiquity. 

Scylax (550 b. c.) was the first European who 
appears to have visited India. He was sent by 
Darius to explore the Indus, and published, it would 
seem, an account of his journey, which related to his 
Greek countrymen many astonishing tales of a tra- 
veller, as did, with still more audacity, the subsequent 
relation of Ctesias, who lived for some years at the 
Persian Court of Artaxerxes Mnemon (b. c. 425). 
Orientalists, however, who are versed in Sanscrit 
literature, admit that the monstrous stories of Ctesias 
agree in the main with what the Hindus of that day 
themselves believed.* Herodotus, in his short account 
of India, followed Scylax as an authority. And it 
was not until the expedition of Alexander (327 B.C.) 
that a body of able observers, trained in the school 
of Aristotle, were enabled to give accurate ideas to 
Europe of the condition of India. Of these writers, 
Megasthenes is far the most important. He lived at 
the Court of Chandragupta, at Palibrothra, on the 
Ganges, as an envoy from Seleucus I. ; and he pro- 
bably passed some years in India. The confirmation 
which his accounts of India and of Indian customs 
have received from indigenous literature, and from 
subsequent inquiries, stamp Megasthenes as an 

* See Scwanbeck's " Megasthenes" p. 8. 



50 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



authority of the highest weight. According to him, 
the Indian state to which he was accredited, the 
military force of which consisted of 600,000 infantry, 
30,000 cavalry, and 9000 elephants,* was better 
organised, and displayed more wisdom in internal 
government and police arrangements than any 
country in Europe could then boast of. As the 
existence of this flourishing Indian kingdom, 2150 
years ago, fixes the most accurate period in Indian 
antiquity of which we have any clear knowledge, it 
may be well to add the summary given by the accu- 
rate Lassen,t as to the state of India at that time, 
as it may be gleaned from the fragments of 
Megasthenes. 

" In all departments of administration, exemplary 
order appears to have prevailed. The internal police 
of the larger cities was regulated with a foresight of 
which we have no example in any other eastern state. 
Amongst other arrangements, the police were charged 
with the duty of providing for the wants of foreigners 
and travellers. Agriculture, as the mainstay of a 
well-ordered state, was fostered by the law ; and the 
cultivators of the soil, undisturbed by any forcible 
seizures of their crops during war-time, were enabled 
to devote themselves to their peaceful employments. 
. . . . With respect to their character at that period, 
Megasthenes especially praises their uprightness, 

* It will be recollected that the number of elephants maintained 
by the Emperor Akbar was six thousand; the numbers, therefore, 
recorded by the Greek writer are by no means incredible. 

f Indische Altherth., vol. i. 728. 



MEGASTHENES ON THE HINDUS. 



51 



their truthfulness, their honesty, and respect for age. 
Their courage they had manifested repeatedly in their 
resistance to the superior strategy of the Macedo- 
nians. If, in the present day, shortcomings in 
uprightness and morality may with truth be ascribed 
to them, this ought not to excite our wonder, 
when we recollect that the oppressions of their Mus- 
sulman rulers have weighed over nearly the whole 
of India for a period, more or less, of eight hundred 
years." 

It is remarkable that this weighty testimony of the 
ancient Greek to the truthfulness of the Hindus, so 
strongly at variance as it is with modern experience, 
should be confirmed by one of the most accurate 
observers of the present day, Colonel Sleeman, who 
states that in pure Hindu villages, where no con- 
tamination from foreigners has taken place, it is 
impossible to find a more truth-speaking population. 
An acute Hindu observer, on contrasting the sim- 
plicity of these villagers with the more ruse inha- 
bitants of towns, remarked that the former had not 
learned the value of a lie.* 

The era of Chandragupta, or 300 B.C., is the earliest 
fixed point which can be said to be established by 
authentic Indian history. But on going further 
back, we find, by a variety of concurrent testimony 
from Eastern literature of the different countries in 
which Buddhism has established itself, that the era 
of the remarkable man who effected such a large 
reform, or rather such a complete change in the 

* See " Rambles of an Indian Official," by Col. Sleeman, ii. 109. 

E 2 



52 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



Hindu religion, has been ascertained with consider- 
able precision. I extract from a paper I read before 
the Asiatic Society at Bombay, a short resume of the 
principal facts in the life of the founder of Bhuddism, 
which Orientalists of the present day have gleaned 
from Pali, Thibetan, and even Mongol literature : 

" Sakya Gautama, as he called himself, a Kshetrya 
by cast, and of the royal race of the Sakyas, who 
ruled at Kapilavasta (a town near the modern Luck- 
now), was born in the year 598 B.C. He was educated 
right royally both in the arts and sciences of the day; 
and he spent the first twenty-eight years of his life in 
the usual enjoyments of a court, and in the company of 
his three wives, at one of his father's palaces. In 
his twenty-ninth year, reflections on the great prob- 
lems of life drove him into solitude, bent on dis- 
covering a remedy for the evils which he observed to 
prevail in the world. Flying from the royal palace 
by stealth, he cut off his hair and donned the yellow 
robe, which subsequently became the canonical attire 
of the Buddhist priesthood, and he betook himself to 
the fastnesses of the Eajmahal Hills. He next sought 
out a celebrated abode of Brahmans, on a hill near 
Gaya ; but soon ascertained that their practices were 
naught and their doctrines bootless. He then with- 
drew to a solitary spot on the Nilgan river, an 
affluent of the Phalgu, where, with a few disciples, 
he spent six years in fastings and mortifications of 
the flesh. But finding that his mental powers became 
impaired by such lengthened vigils, he renounced 



ACCOUNT OF BUDDHA. 



53 



these ascetic practices; upon which his disciples 
deserted him, and fled to Benares, to expiate the sin 
of their master. Thus left alone, Sakva Gautama 
sat down, absorbed in thought, under a bodhi-tree 
[Ileus reHgiosa), when, invigorated by the more 
generous diet he had adopted, he succeeded in attain- 
ing the highest state of perfect knowledge, and 
became a Buddha, or Enlightened. 

" For the next nineteen years he wandered about 
Northern Hindustan, living entirely on alms, and 
making innumerable converts. .... His royal birth 
secured for his doctrines a ready acceptance amongst 
the upper classes of society ; and the Rajahs of 
Kosala, Sravasti, and Ayodhia, or Oudh, vied with 
his own father in erecting spacious viharas or monas- 
teries to receive the devotees of the new faith. After 
promulgating, during this period, the doctrines which, 
up to the present day, have combined the greatest 
number of mankind, next to the Christian religion, in 
the same belief, this royal reformer and truly great 
man, feeling his end approaching, withdrew, in com- 
pany of a few disciples, to a solitary grove of saul- 
trees on the Gandak, and there breathed his last, in 
the month of Taisak, 543 b.c." 

Prior to the era of Buddha, we have, so far as I 
can discover, no ascertained elate. We have only the 
ancient literature on which to found conjectures, the 
most ancient of which literature, the Yedas, have 
been pronounced by the first Oriental authority in 
our country, and one of the calmest and most judi- 
cious investigators of antiquity, Horace Hayman 



54 



A EIRd's-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



Wilson, to be "the oldest extant records of the 
ancient world."* 

No date has been ascertained hitherto for the 
literature in question. It may be sufficient to state, 
where all is mainly hypothesis, that Sir William Jones 
assigns the code of Menu to 880 B.C. Lassen thinks 
that an astronomical allusion in the Atharvan, or 
most recent of the four Yedas, shows it to have been 
composed not later than 1100 B.C. ; and M. Langlois, 
of Paris, translator of one of the Vedas, attributes 
the earliest hymns in those sacred books to the epoch 
of the Great Pyramid of Egypt, i.e. about 3400 B.C. 
The stores of Sanscrit literature, however, which have 
not yet been subjected to criticism, and the tendency 
of modern scholarship, especially amongst the German 
and French, to Oriental studies will probably disclose 
facts from which more certain conclusions as to dates 
will be obtained. 



* Introduction to " Rig Veda," by Professor H. H. Wilson, p. 48. 



HINDU RELIGION. 



55 



CHAPTER XL 



Religion of the Hindus. — Tendency to change.— Difficulties for 
Missionaries. — Account of Swinging Festival. 

On arriving in India nothing strikes the eye 
more than the extent to which the outward and 
visible signs of religion cover the land. Temples in 
every village, testimonials to the god on every road- 
side, religious processions, and pilgrims wending 
their way to distant shrines, arrest the attention of 
the most casual observer. The longer one remains in 
India the more deeply does the conviction impress 
itself on the mind that there is no country in the 
world in which religion enters so largely into the 
occurrences of daily life. It is not an exaggera- 
tion to say that the whole existence of a Hindu 
is mapped out for him and prescribed by reli- 
gious ordinances, and it would be doing injustice 
to the Hindus not to admit that a great portion 
of their lives is passed in conformity with those 
ordinances. 

The Hindu religion indeed is so completely inter- 
woven with the social life of the Hindus that how- 
ever much every Englishman must desire to see 
Christianity introduced, and although great moral 
improvement may be expected to follow in its train, 
still a considerable modification of European estab- 



56 A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OP INDIA, 



lishments would seem to be necessary in order fully 
to replace the ingeniously devised system of the 
Brahmans. For example, the Hindu temple in every 
village with its attached Dharamsala, or hotel, for the 
gratuitous reception of travellers (which is to be 
found wherever the Hindu religion has penetrated) 
offers, to the villagers, not only a place of resort or 
club where the affairs of the day may be discussed, 
but a refuge for the poor and destitute, and a shelter 
for the homeless traveller. The tanks, wells, groves 
of fruit trees dedicated to the public, which are to be 
found m every part of India, are for the most part 
traceable to the piety of Hindus acting in obedience 
to their religion. The personal cleanliness of the 
Hindus, as well as many other daily habits, are also 
mainly founded on texts to be found in Menu and 
other religious guides; and I remember a remark 
made to me, by a native of Bombay, as to 
Christian converts, namely, that the only difference 
which his countrymen perceived in their conduct 
after conversion was that they ceased to wash 
themselves. The example of pious, self-deny™ 
Brahmans, also, who, though exceptions, are the only 
ones really much respected by their countrymen, and 
who, by their cultivation of learning and disregard 
of worldly advantages, are enabled to act as gratuitous 
instructors and counsellors of their countrymen is 
very powerful on society, and suggests an institution 
which might possibly be imitated with advantage. 
We may smile at the grotesque absurdities, and 
deplore the gross superstition of the system of polv- 



SUGGESTION TO MISSIONARIES. 



57 



theism which prevails amongst the Hindu vulgar, but it 
is impossible not to admire the faith which dictates, 
and the self-sacrifice which has always produced in 
the Hindu system, a devotion to things divine, and a 
performance of acts generally beneficial to mankind, 
untinged by any ordinary worldly motive. 

I have often thought indeed that the most 
successful course for Christian missionaries to adopt 
in order to counteract Brahminical influence, would 
be to seat themselves down in Hindu villages, away 
from European establishments, and to adopt the 
simple living and inexpensive habits of the Brahman ; 
if then, by previous studies of the arts and sciences of 
Europe, especially of medicine and astronomy, they 
could put themselves in a position to render more 
useful services to the population than Brahmans now 
afford, this self-devotion and utility would secure for 
them a position and an influence which they certainly 
have not yet obtained. I am aware that sacrifices 
like these, though they may be made at times under 
strong impulses by individuals such as Xavier or 
Schwartz, cannot fairly be expected from any profession 
of men, or for a continued period, but I point out 
that the Hindu system undoubtedly produces them, 
and that missionaries have to compete for spiritual 
influence, with a body of men all over India who, 
with more or less purity of life, have made them- 
selves exemplary among their fellows. 

In a general sketch of India it is impossible to 
give any details as to the tenets of the Hindu religion, 
but it may be observed that, notwithstanding the 



58 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



strong feeling of conservatism and attachment to old 
dogmas in India, considerable changes— not to say re- 
volutions— in religion have taken place. The gods of 
the Vedas have so completely given way to other deities 
that they are scarcely ever mentioned in the present 
day. Buddha, as we have seen, introduced what may 
be called a new religion into India in the sixth cen- 
tury before Christ. This religion, after having 
flourished under the patronage of native dynasties, 
and taken deep root in the country, was subsequently, 
however, so completely oppressed and trodden under 
foot by Brahminical persecution (the details of which 
have not reached us) that not a single Buddhist now 
remains in India proper; although the Jains, who 
claim to be an older sect than the Buddhists, and who 
are numerous in Gujardt and Western India, are no 
doubt an offset from the latter sect. 

Religious reforms, indeed, and innovations, may be 
said to be always going on in the bosom of Hindu 
society. It is not clear when it was that Vishnu and 
Shiva, who are the deities now most in vogue with the 
Hindus, obtained their supremacy; but a reformer of 
the eleventh century— Sankar-Acharya, seems to have 
been much concerned with the movement. The 
founder of the Sikh religion— Nanak, who flourished 
three centuries ago, was a Hindu of the Jat cast, and 
the creed he enjoined, in fact, incorporates a great 
portion of Hinduism. In the present century Narayan 
Swami has put forth so many new tenets, and col- 
lected such a large body of believers, that the nucleus 
of a new religion seems to have been formed by him. 



SWINGING FESTIVAL. 



59 



In fact, the genius of Hinduism is so tolerant, 
and the Brahminical system affords such a large 
scope within which the religious feeling may exert 
itself, that there seems to prevail the greatest indiffer- 
ence as to what the actual religious faith of any 
individual is, and intolerance is only exerted when 
any disposition to break the rules of cast is 
manifested. 

The potency of Hindu faith, and the physical 
suffering which individuals will undergo in order to 
manifest it, are nowhere exhibited more strongly than 
in the swinging festivals, which take place in honour 
of the god, on certain days of the year. A friend of 
mine, the late Professor Green, was present at one 
of these ceremonies, and he gave me the following 
interesting account. 

" The village of Bhamburde is only separated from 
Poonah by the river Moota, and I have just returned 
from witnessing in it one of the most remarkable 
sights which is to be seen in India. This is the 
birthday of the God Maruti (Hunooman)— the monkey 
deity — the ancestor, by the way, of all us Europeans, 
and the god whose chivalrous devotion to the divine 
Sita has obtained the empire of India for us his 
descendants. At Bhamburde he is engaged in a sort 
of partnership with Bhairav (the Lord of Terror), one 
of the incarnations of Mahadev or S^iva; and the 
compound deity thus formed is known by the name 
of Bokdoba, that is, the god of prompt payment, or, 
in other words, he who never delays his responses to 
the prayers of his votaries. 



60 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



"In front of the temple of this deity, a picturesque 
opening near the river, there were assembled this 
evening probably from twenty to thirty thousand 
people— the grand event of the day being the fulfil- 
ment of the views of such votaries as had promised 
the god to suspend themselves in the air by hooks 
passed through the muscles of the back, and allow 
themselves to be thus whirled in his honour round a 
circle of fifty or sixty feet in circumference. 

"Asa child of Maruti himself, I found no difficulty 
m obtaining admission into the very innermost circle 
of votaries, and was enabled to observe, as closely as 
I pleased, the whole of the proceedings. The first 
martyr who presented himself was a well-grown 
sturdy cultivator of about thirty-five years of age. 
The operator, a carpenter by trade, pinched up a 
portion on each side of the skin and muscles of the 
back, and thrust his sharp flat hooks through with 
much dexterity. The martyr, I thought, looked a 
little pale and nervous; but he certainly never once 
winced, and when hoisted in the air and swung 
round, dispersed his pieces of sacred cocoa-nut among 
the eager crowd below with the most perfect coolness 
and self-possession. On being lowered he was laid 
on his face on the ground, the hooks extracted, and 
the wounds stuffed with turmeric and well trodden 
down by the heel of the operator ! I should like to 
hear the opinion of the Grant Medical College as to 
the propriety of this treatment. 

" The next patient was a man of more sedentary 
habits and a more sensitive organisation. He appeared 



HINDU SELF-TORTURE. 



61 



to suffer greatly when the hooks were thrust through 
the pinched up portions of the back, but bore all the 
rest of the operation heroically enough. I was much 
struck by the fact, that, with only one exception, 
these poor people had voluntarily incurred all these 
tortures from purely disinterested motives. This was 
a man childless himself, but who had vowed to 
undergo all this suffering in order to save the life of a 
dear younger sister's child. The sister, but a girl 
herself, with her darling child perfectly restored to 
health, was present; and the deep sympathy and 
profound affection for her brother so visible in her 
face and in all her demeanour effectually disarmed all 
sceptical criticism on the subject. 

"But the next victim was even far more interesting 
still. It was a young, delicate-featured, and decidedly 
pretty Kunbi woman, who had voluntarily drawn 
upon herself this exposure and torture in behalf of no 
nearer or dearer relation than her husband's brother. 
Some six weeks or two months ago, a Kunbi domestic 
servant came early in the morning, as usual, to the 
house of his master, a native banker; saw his 
master's bed, as he believed, empty ; rolled it up, and 
smothered in it a poor sleeping infant nine months 
old. He was apprehended, and his family concluded 
that we should hang him, or, at the very least, 
transport him. In their distress his brother's wife 
made this earnest appeal to Bhairav, and as she, the 
brother, and most of the twenty or thirty thousand 
people present on this occasion believe, succeeded in 
engaging him to exert his powerful influence on the 



A BIRD's-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



minds of the English authorities, and thus procured 
the liberation of the unfortunate homicide. The 
poor girl suffered a good deal in the first part of the 
operation, but very speedily recovered her serenity, 
and was hoisted in the air amidst loud shouts of 
'T-s-a-ng Bhule' (Tsang one of the names of the 
god, and Bhule beneficent), from the crowds of 
believing spectators. 

"I grew exceedingly spooney, I must confess, as I 
read in the face of the poor girl, where it was so 
visibly depicted, the gratification which she felt at 
being able to afford her husband and his family this 
proof of her devotion to them. The poor people had 
sacrificed a goat on the occasion, and were to have a 
grand feast this evening, and probably few hearts in 
Poonah just now are as happy as hers. 

"The fourth votary was an aged mother whose 
prayers had saved the life of an adult son. The vow 
had been made, and the miracle performed, eleven 
years ago; but the poor people had never been able 
till now to incur the expenses of the offering to the 
god and the subsequent feast. The old lady went 
through the whole with the utmost heroism, and 
shouted < Tsang Bhule' while suspended, and scattered 
her prusdd with great, though, perhaps, somewhat 
flurried, enthusiasm. The son himself, a man of 
thirty years of age, was in attendance, in a state 
of much greater excitement than his mother, and 
paying her the most anxious attention. He was not 
a very prepossessing personage, and his anger at the 
crowd which pressed too eagerly on the old lady, and 



SWINGING FESTIVAL. 



63 



would not be sufficiently orderly, was somewhat 
greater than there was any occasion for. But he was 
there with the full conviction that he owed the con- 
tinuation of his life to the devotion of his mother, 
and might easily, therefore, be forgiven even a good 
deal more extravagance than he really displayed. 

"On the whole, while one could scarcely look on so 
much unnecessary suffering without a good deal of 
regret, and some little impatient anger, it was not 
possible to avoid being touched with the amount of 
self-sacrifice exhibited; and, although I left the 
ground with less admiration than ever for exhibitions 
of gigantic faith, I was conscious of kindlier feelings 
towards the race among whom such manifestations of 
the domestic and social affections are, I believe, the 
most common-place occurrences." 



64 



A BIBd's-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Casts.— Brahmans.— Tendency to subdivision of Casts. 

Next to the influence of religion, perhaps superior 
to it, the system of casts is the most powerful agent 
on the character and habits of the people of India. 
At an early stage & society, the division of the 
people into a few classes, which shall pursue each its 
own hereditary occupation distinct from the other, 
and transmit its knowledge and acquired experience in 
its craft to posterity, is probably an element of pro- 
gress. It certainly has sprung up spontaneously in 
many countries of the world, widely different from 
one another. But it is in India alone that the institu- 
tion has become perpetual, and has been elaborated 
to an extent unwitnessed elsewhere. It is well- 
known that according to the original division in the 
Code of Menu, the Hindu casts were four, — the 
sacerdotal cast, or Brahmans, the soldier-cast, or 
Kshetryas ; the industrious cast, whose pursuits were 
trade and agriculture, or Vaisyas, and the servile 
cast, or Sudras ; but in modern times this fourfold 
division has disappeared, and according to the 
Brahmans, there are only two pure casts left, them- 
selves and the Sudras. 

I have often thought that the Brahmans are the 
most remarkable body of men who ever lived ; and a 



INFLUENCE OF B RAHMANS. 



65 



calm philosophic work, tracing the growth and extent 
of the influence which they exercise in India, and the 
mode in which by direct institutions they have 
organized the whole framework of society for their 
own benefit, would be one of the most curious and 
valuable additions to human knowledge that could 
be produced from the East. According to the 
original theory of Brahmanism, as it may be gleaned 
from the texts of Menu, the framers of the system 
do not seem to have proceeded with any selfish views 
in their assignation of duties and employments to the 
brahminical order; on the contrary, "the life pre- 
scribed to them is one of laborious studv as well 

t/ 

as of austerity and retirement.*" * It has only been 
by gradual steps, and by glosses on the original texts 
of the law, that Brahmans have been able to establish 
their extraordinary supremacy in Hindu society. 
But by what process is it that they have been enabled 
to perpetuate the opinion among their countrymen, 
which has endured for at least three thousand years, 
as to their divine character ? For a Brahman is 
considered as emanating from the deity, or Brahma, 
himself, and occasionally the god becomes manifest in 
the person of a Brahman, as was the case with a 
family near Poona, whilst I was in India, and where 
for seven generations the universal belief of the 
country was that the head of the family was the 
incarnate God. 

Their intellectual superiority over their country- 

* See Elphinstone's " History of India," i. 24. 



66 



A BIKD's-EYE VIEW OE INDIA. 



men is not less remarkable than the spiritual supre- 
macy which they exercise, and their qualities for 
administration whether under Akbar, under the 
Peshwa, or under the British, have always enabled 
them to force their way into the highest posts. It 
is not too much to say that the mind and thinking 
power of India is essentially Brahman : on the whole, 
I believe, exercised well and beneficially for the 
community according to their lights, but also no 
doubt very frequently the reverse. So forcibly was 
this conviction impressed upon me whilst sitting in 
the Supreme Court, and obtaining the close view of 
the springs of action among a people that criminal 
procedure affords, that whenever any very ingenious 
and complicated piece of roguery came before me, I 
immediately began to inquire what Brahman was at 
the bottom of it, and it rarely occurred that I was 
wrong in my conjecture. It should be added, that 
the physical pre-eminence of the Brahmans is not 
less notable. A Brahman village may be at once 
distinguished by the good looks of its inmates, by 
the cleanliness of its children, the elegant dress of 
the women, the neatness of the dwellings, and the 
conscious look of superiority which denotes all its 
inhabitants. I remember while passing through the 
village of Toka on the Godaveri, the dignified bear- 
ing of several Brahmans I met there, whose whole 
revenue probably was a few shillings a month, with 
their calm intellectual expression of countenance, 
and their graceful drapery hanging classically from 
their shoulders, aroused in my mind a vivid idea of 



HINDU CASTS. 



i 

67 



what might have been the appearance of a Greek 
philosopher of the age of Plato. 

The Sudras, or servile class, according to the 
original theory of cast, were created expressly to 
serve the three superior casts. It would seem not 
improbable that the Sudras were the aborigines of 
India, whom an immigrant conquering race subdued ; 
and the latter having divided themselves into the 
three classes of Brahmans, Chsetrya, and Vaisya, 
assigned the subordinate, or fourth class, to the 
conquered race. The Sudras, however, from a de- 
spised, low class, in process of time have grown 
to be considered a very pure cast, and they form 
the bulk of the agriculturists of India. In addition 
to these casts there have always existed races of 
no cast, or outcasts, of whose origin no clear views 
are entertained. In the Deccan and Gujarat these 
races are called Dhers and Mhars respectively ; they 
are a well-grown, intelligent people i inferior in no 
respect to the Hindus generally; and, from their 
exclusive possession of certain trades which it would 
be loss of cast in a Hindu to exercise, not ill off in 
worldly circumstances ; but still so despised, and so 
much treated as inferiors by the community at large, 
not being allowed even to reside within the village, 
that they are not classed under the name of Hindus. 
It is remarkable how any body of men can have 
so long submitted to this state of degradation without 
revolt, and even with cheerfulness ; but in India, 
every institution which is old seems implicitly re- 
ceived by the people as the natural and inevitable 

F 2 



68 



A BIRTHS-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



state of society, and as the will of God, against 
which it would be useless and impossible to make 
resistance. Indeed, I have often found it difficult, 
even with the best educated Hindus, to make them 
understand how a well regulated society could be 
maintained, where no special class existed to perform 
the office of sweeper, and other distasteful occupa- 
tions, to which the Mhars, Dhers, and Pariahs of 
India by special institution have been condemned. 

In place of the original four casts of India, 
modern Hindu society is cut up into an infinitude of 
divisions, and the tendency seems to be towards the 
multiplication of casts. In a census of the city of 
Poona, out of about 100,000 inhabitants, the number 
of casts amounted to nearly a hundred. According 
to brahminical views, each cast should keep rigour- 
ously to its own occupation, and Brahmans deem it 
extremely presumptuous that coppersmiths, jewellers, 
carpenters, goldsmiths, &c, should addict themselves 
to studies and pursuits which have been hitherto 
deemed the exclusive patrimony of the sacred order ; 
but as the British Government, of course, does not 
recognise any such privileges, a wide door is opened 
for the development of native talent and energy, and 
self-interest is commencing a formidable opposition 
to priestly influence. 



COLOUR OF THE HINDUS. 



69 



CHAPTEE XIII. 



Physical Appearance of Inhabitants of India. — Manners. — Dress. — 
Food. — Social Life. — Morals. 

The physical appearance of the inhabitants of 
India is probably well known in England, from the 
numerous individuals who visit our shores, and from 
various illustrations and pictures which art has made 
familiar in our households. But it should be observed 
that there is as great a difference between the appear- 
ance of the inhabitants of one part of the country 
and another, and also between the different casts, as 
there is between Spaniards and Norwegians, or 
between Celts and Saxons. Indeed, when it is recol- 
lected that the principal casts of India keep their 
blood as distinct and unmingled with that of the sur- 
rounding population as the Jews do in Europe, it is 
not to be wondered at that characteristic traits and 
features should be perpetuated among them. India, 
in this respect, offers an admirable field for study to 
the ethnographer, as it presents so many examples of 
distinct races living under circumstances which are 
supposed to affect colour and appearance, and yet 
retaining their original tint unaltered. The Parsis, 
for example, who have lived in Western India for 
about 1200 years, are as distinguishable from Hindus 



70 



A BIRTHS -EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



by their yellow tinge as by their physical build. The 
Jews of Cochin are a still more remarkable example. 
The colony has been established there since the third 
or fourth century after Christ ; and Pritchard was of 
opinion that their dark colour was acquired by the 
long residence of their race in a tropical country; 
but this learned writer was misled by his authorities. 
There are two races of Jews in Cochin, the white and 
the black. The former are the descendants of the 
original colonists, — intermingling their blood, no 
doubt, at times with their brethren at Bagdad and 
Damascus; but those whom I saw there were as 
white as the Jews of Europe. The black Jews are 
purely Hindu in blood, and are the descendants of 
slaves and servants who have been converted by their 
Jewish masters. 

When these differences are kept in view, it may, I 
think, be fairly stated that the Hindus are a hand- 
some race of mankind ; and the light cocoa-nut 
brown tint, which their higher casts and which 
Mussalmans not too much exposed to the sun, ex- 
hibit, is so agreeable to the eye, that Bishop Heber 
was almost inclined to prefer ifc to the pink and white 
of the fair-skinned races of Europe. They belong 
clearly to the same Caucasian type as ourselves ; and 
the affinity of the greater part of their languages to 
the principal tongues of Europe, would seem to show 
that the Hindus are more closely allied in race to the 
great European nations, than are the Jews and other 
Semitic tribes. The stalwart proportions of the Anglo- 
Saxon or German are, however, not seen in India. 



HLNDU WOMEN. 



71 



The organisation of the Hindu is slighter and more 
feminine, yet capable probably of equal endurance, 
when not overtaxed beyond his relative strength. 
The women, with their elegantly-turned limbs and 
small hands and feet, all displayed with liberal pro- 
fusion to admirers of the nudo, may vie with those of 
anv country in the world for symmetry ; and I know 
not a more picturesque sight than a river near some 
Brahman village, such as Wahi in the Deccan, to 
which Hindu maidens are resorting for the purpose 
either of bathing or fetching water. In the former 
case, it is remarkable to observe with what virgin 
purity the whole operations of bathing and changing 
the dress are effected in the face of the whole village. 
A Brahman girl puts on a clean robe every day, and the 
river is entered with, everything on, so that the toilette 
as well as the belle receive ablution at the same time ; 
while, on emerging from the stream, the dry clothes 
left on the bank are artistically arranged for putting 
on, and in the twinkling of an eye the wet dress drops 
from beneath the sari, or flowing robe, which the 
maiden puts on at the same moment. This sari, 
which is the universal dress of a Hindu female, con- 
sists of a very long, narrow robe, often twenty or thirty 
yards long, which, after being first bound round the 
waist, is tucked up, — one end of it behind, whilst the 
other end is thrown gracefully over the shoulder. 
In addition to this, in "Western India, they wear a 
short spencer, called a ckuli, covering the bosom, but 
leaving the greater part of the arms, and the body 
down to the waist, bare. They wear nothing on their 



72 



A BIRd's-EYE VIEW OF INDIA, 



heads but native flowers; and the graceful coiffure h 
la Grecque is universal. 

The dress altogether is most. becoming; and when 
in full costume, with a handsome sari, a Hindu girl 
coming from the well, with a vase of water on her 
head, lias often reminded me of an ancient Caryatid, 
or of the finest draped figure of antiquity— the Pallas' 
di Yelletri. With all my appreciation of Hindu 
female grace, however, I never could get over the 
disagreeable impression made upon me by the nose- 
ring, which all married Hindu women wear suspended 
from the right nostril, sometimes of extravagant pro- 
portions, and which never failed to call to my mind 
those animals in England whose noses we arm in a 
similar manner, though certainly not with any deco- 
rative intention. Whilst on the subject of physical 
appearance, I should add, that Hindu children are 
lovely, giving indeed promise of greater beauty than 
they afterwards realise. 

It is curious to note the strong contrast which 
Hindus offer to Europeans in their dress. I do not 
mean merely in the form of it, but in its unvarying 
character. In Europe, one age may be easily dis- 
tinguished from another by the cut of a coat or the 
dimensions of a robe; and the expenditure on dress 
is very much increased, especially amongst women 
by the inexorable behests of fashion. In India, one 
generation dresses like another,— fashion never inter- 
venes for a moment,— and the idea is so little known, 
that I question if the word is translateable into any 
Indian language. Is it clear that Europe occupies 



EUROPEAN AND HINDU COSTUME. 



73 



the vantage ground in this respect ? That suitable- 
ness to the climate and elegance in form are pre- 
sented, in a superior degree, by the Oriental costume, 
no one, I think, who has attended either to comfort 
or to art, can deny. The changes which 'have taken 
place in European male dress during the last two 
centuries appear to have been effected principally 
with a view to utility and comfort. It is the same 
advance of democracy which may be seen in so many 
other quarters, and which forbids the use of dis- 
tinctive raiment. But have these claims of comfort 
and utility (I say nothing of elegance) been as yet 
fully met ? The continual alterations in the uniform 
of soldiers,* and the complaints constantly heard 
from our burghers, of swallow-tailed coats and tight- 
fitting pantaloons, seem to show that the end in view 
has not yet been attained. As to female costume, a 
different principle, that of novelty, appears to have 
been chiefly in operation ; and the most rapid transi- 
tions may be traced — from short waists to long, from 
scanty robes to fall, from short dresses to long — in 
which change for change/ sake seems to have been 
the only guiding motive. Surely the advance of 
civilisation is not denoted by the comparative in- 
fluence of tailors and milliners. 

Orientals have also resisted — not, I think, with 
equal wisdom — the domestic and social improvements 

* So far as economy goes, the uniform of the French soldier seems 
to leave nothing to desire on this head. The " Budget de Guerre" 
for 1852 sets down the annual cost of an infantry soldier's dress, 
including wear and tear, at thirty-seven francs (1/. 9s. Id.) 



74 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



which modern refinement has introduced into Europe. 
It was not, indeed, till about 1611 that Coryate* 
introduced forks into England; but to this day not 
a single purely Hindu household possesses a knife, 
fork, or spoon, a plate, a cup, a chair, or a sofa. 
Their dinners are served on leaves, neatly plaited for 
the occasion, and thrown away after use; and the 
right hand, which alone is allowed to approach the 
mouth, performs all the offices of what the French 
call a convert. It may be observed, that the inha- 
bitants of Ceylon, who as a race are decidedly 
inferior in energy and intelligence to the Hindus, are 
before them in the adoption of European improve- 
ments; and every Cingalese cottage may be observed 
to contain a stock of China plates and bowls. 

Hindu cookery can scarcely afford any arguments 
m behalf of the vegetarian theory, for it is but a sorry 
art, and is exceedingly limited in resources. The 
higher casts, and those classes rising in the world 
who ape the customs of the higher casts, abstain 
carefully from all animal food, and the Brahmans of 
the coast of western India, who eat fish, are exceed- 
ingly looked down upon by their brethren at Madras 
for their low propensities. The Rajputs, however, 
among the higher casts eat mutton, and also,' 
strangely enough, pork, if it be from the wild hog; 
and the Marathas and Sudras generally eat mutton 
when they can get it. Still, from the poverty of the 
bulk of the people, grain and vegetables form the 

* The tomb of this eccentric traveller is at Surat, where he died 
in 1617. 



HINDU COOKERY. 



75 



staple of their insipid diet from one end of the year 
to another. Notwithstanding, however, the meagre 
cheer which the Hindu kitchen affords, and the 
unsocial system of cast, which prevents the man of 
one cast from " eating salt " with his neighbour and 
friend of a different cast, the dinner to an ordinary 
Hindu forms the great business of his life ; not only 
to obtain it, which is a task painfully prominent all 
the world over, but to perform the operations of 
cookery, if his wife is not by to discharge that office 
for him, and to seek out spices, condiments, and 
vegetables to make the monotonous dish palatable; 
for the exclusive system of cast, amongst other 
effects, causes every Hindu to be his own cook. It is 
astonishing, however, how well the Hindu thrives on 
his meagre diet, and, when occasion calls, on what 
scanty rations he can keep up a life of energy. It 
is told of Baji Rao, the leader of the Marathas, that 
in his war against us, he sustained the longest 
marches, and lived for days and days together on 
parched grain, which he munched as he marched at 
the head of his numerous cavalry. So also the heroic 
trait of Olive's Sepoys is well known, who, when on 
one occasion they were reduced with their English 
comrades to the greatest distress, entreated their com- 
mander to give all the rice (the only food left in 
store) to the English, who were less accustomed to 
privation, and to leave them only the water in which 
it w r as boiled. 

The social life of the Hindu appears to a European's 
eye exceedingly monotonous : the complete subordi- 



76 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OP INDIA. 



nation of the female sex makes society entirely mas- 
culine, and cast does not allow of those festive 
meetings at a goodly banquet which bring congenial 
minds together, and which, in the opinion of Kant, 
make a good dinner, with well-assorted guests, the 
highest occasion for displaying human intellect and 
joyousuess. Cast dinners, nevertheless, play a great 
part m Hindu festive economy, though the purpose is 
chiefly gorging. The festivals relating to marriage 
the betrothal, the ceremony itself, the investiture of 
children with the sacred thread where the parents 
belong to the higher casts, are all occasions which 
bring Hindus together, and in which great taste and, 
unfortunately, profuse expenditure are exhibited. 

There are only certain months during which Hindu 
astrology allows of the celebration of marriage, and 
at these periods Hindu society appears to think of 
nothing else. In the island of Bombay, where a very 
wealthy commercial community exists, during April 
and May processions of elegantly dressed girls, with 
fresh Champdca flowers in their black hair, and their 
feet tinkling as they walk with massive gold anclets 
and toe rings, are met daily in the street carrying 
presents to the bride; or the bride and bridegroom, 
sitting on one horse gaily caparisoned, and escorted 
by troops of friends, are encountered on their road to 
the paternal mansion, where the ceremony is to be 
performed, and which is decorated and brilliantly 
lighted for the reception of the cast, often at an 
expense wholly disproportionate to the means of the 
parties. 



HINDU TRUTHFULNESS. 



77 



With respect to the morals of the Hindus, 
which English writers are usually so eloquent in 
denunciating, a criminal judge is bound to speak 
very favourably, so far as morals may be judged of by 
the records of an assize court. I am decidedly of opi- 
nion, after an experience of more than eleven years on 
the Bench, that offences against property, and crimes 
generally, are less frequent in the island of Bombay, 
where six hundred thousand persons are congregated 
together in dense masses, than in any similar com- 
munity in Europe, where equal wealth and equal 
poverty are huddled up together. Yet the opinion of 
Hindus is universal, that native morality suffers by 
coming into close contact with the English. The 
pristine simplicity and truthfulness of the native 
village disappear — drunkenness, intrigue, and a liti- 
gious spirit supervene. 

I say the truthfulness of a native village, for the 
best observers of native character — such as Colonel 
Sleeman, whom I have already quoted,* — admit 
that, except in their relations with government and 
the authorities, whom they have been accustomed 
from old time to look upon as enemies, and whom, 
therefore, 

Opimus 

Fallere et effugere est triumphus, 

the ordinary disposition of a native mind, perhaps 

* The chapter of this writer on Hindu veracity is one of the most 
interesting of his work, which is well worthy a careful perusal by all 
who occupy themselves with the welfare of India. (See ,e Rambles of 
an Indian Official," vol. ii. p. 109.) 



78 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



like that of a child, is truthful. Such, also, was the 
light, as I have already shown, in which Hindu 
character presented itself to the Greek writers and 
companions of Alexander. 

It must be admitted, however, by the warmest 
admirers of the Hindus that, in the Hindu code, 
truth by no means occupies the same high place 
which Christianity and chivalry have obtained for it 
in European society. Much of this is owing, I 
think, to the constitution of the Hindu mind, which, 
from its inferiority in powers of correct observation to 
the imaginative element, disenables it to present 
accurate descriptions of the facts which have been 
witnessed; more to the long-continued despotism 
which has existed for centuries in the East, truth 
never being an attribute of slaves or of those in a 
subordinate position ; something to precepts of their 
religion, which, in certain cases, enjoins falsehood to 
avert what Brahmans deem a greater evil. 

On the other hand, in some relations of life, I 
think the Hindus excel the English; in the never- 
failing respect paid to parents, in the self-devotion 
exhibited by parents to children, in sympathy with 
the poor, and acts of beneficence for the public weal, 
and they certainly equal us in fidelity and gratitude 
to benefactors. 



HINDU MARRIAGES. 



79 



CHAPTER XIY. 

Hindu Marriages.— Expences of Marriage.— Polygamy.— Polyandry. 
— Nair Marriages. 

The most important incident in a Hindu's life— not 
an unimportant incident in the life of any one— is his 
marriage. But wedlock in Europe only has in view 
the interests and worldly advantages of the two 
individuals who determine on giving up celibacy ; 
whereas with a Hindu the most sacred texts of his 
Scriptures enjoin upon him the taking to himself a 
wife, and an unmarried man is declared to be incapa- 
citated for the performance of any religious duty. 
Hence it is, that of the three great duties in life, the 
begetting a son, the digging a well and pilgrimage 
to Bernares, the first is ranked by all Hindus as the 
most weighty, for the office of such a son is to 
offer up a funeral cake at the obsequies of his father 
to his ancestors in Hades. 

Marriage then being so all important, from the tram- 
mels imposed by cast which forbid marriage out of cer- 
tain very limited circles, fit helpmates are very difficult 
to be met with, and accordingly the securing proper 
matches, and the celebration of different stages of 
the wedding ceremony, seem to constitute the great 
occupation of social life amongst the Hindus. It is 



80 



A BLRD's-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



of course familiar to my hearers that Hindu casts 
only marry among themselves, but the restrictions by 
no means end here. The Brahmans, acute observers 
as they are, have discovered the evils which arise 
from too close an intermixture of blood ; they have 
accordingly established several canonical impediments 
to the marriages of relatives which, in small casts, 
often make it extremely difficult for individuals to 
form fit alliances. Moreover, subdivisions of the 
same cast frequently do not intermarry. Of the 
eighty-four divisions of Brahmans in Gujarat many of 
them do not eat, and more still do not marry, with 
one another. In one of their casts the custom is for 
marriages to take place only once in seven years. In 
short, Hindu ingenuity seems to have been exerted to 
devise impediments for obstructing those engage- 
ments, which as I have observed, it is the main busi- 
ness of Hindu life . to form. 

In modern times the practice has arisen for 
marriages to be performed at the tender ages of five 
or six years for girls, and of seven or eight for boys. 
This probably has arisen from the difficulty I have 
described of procuring suitable alliances • and judging 
from the ancient drama of Sacontala, which is attri- 
buted to the second or third century after Christ, 
where the heroine's marriage does not take place till 
an adult age, it would seem that the practice was not 
known in early times. This difficulty also seems to 
have led to one of the most marked features in 
modern Hindu manners, the extraordinary profusion 
and lavish expence which attend their marriages. 



HINDU POLYGAMY. 



81 



The Hindus generally are parsimonious, not to say 
stingy, in the extreme, but the cost of a marriage as 
required by modern habits and by the force of cast 
opinions frequently imposes a burthen on the bride- 
groom which is felt for life. I recollect a rich friend 
of mine at Bombay of the goldsmith cast, who saw 
as clearly as any' one the evils which resulted to his 
countrymen from their extravagance in these matters, 
and who, both from his prudent habits and from his 
desire to introduce a better system, would have been 
delighted to set an example of economy, yet he felt 
himself compelled to spend ten thousand pounds in 
the fetes of a few days on the marriage of his son. 
Hindu notions on the subject have pervaded the 
whole community. Parsis, Mahomedans, Hindus, all 
vie with one another in the magnificence of their 
entertainments on the occasion ; and, in the case of a 
Mussalman nobleman now in England, my friend 
the Nawab Mir Jafar, as much as fifty thousand 
pounds were spent on the marriages of himself and 
his brother to the daughters of the Nawab of 
Surat. 

A G erman speculator * on Oriental character has 
accounted for its effeminacy and its inferiority in 
energy and vigour to the European by the practice of 
polygamy. But this is mere speculation unsupported 
by facts. As a rule, polygamy is probably not more 
frequent in India than illicit connexions of married 
men in Europe : and the reason why is very obvious; 



* Heeren. 



82 



A BIRD* S -EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



the sexes are born nearly equal in numbers in India 
as elsewhere, and I have shown that the great object 
in life with every Hindu is to marry. In the compe- 
tition for wives, therefore, the man already married, 
unless he is very wealthy, or unless he belongs to a 
cast like the Kulin Brahmans of Bengal, the honour 
of whose alliance is so great that families are willing 
to give their daughter in wedlock though there may 
be already seventy or eighty wedded wives — the 
Benedict, I say, is thought wholly ineligible if there 
should be any bachelor in the field. 

The condition of the Hindu wife is not a very exalted 
one. With the bulk of Hindu society, she is a mere 
slave to her husband, and works for him, cooks for him, 
washes for him, but does not eat with him, walk with 
him, or even venture to address him by his name.* 
Her condition seems to have become aggravated by the 
introduction of the jealous habits of the Mussalmans, 
who relegate their women to the harem, and conceal 
them from the sight of man far more than was or is 
the case in pure Hindu society. In Bombay, where 
the Mussalmans have never been predominant, and in 
the Brahman towns of the Deccan, women of good 
cast are allowed more freedom of action, and are 
much more seen in public than they are in other 
portions of India. 

There seems reason to believe that among the 

* See Col. Sleeman's picturesque account of the old widow who 
hurnt herself in his presence on the Nurbudda, and who in her dying 
moments for the first time pronounced the name of her husband. 
(" Rambles of an Official," vol. i. c. 9.)i 



HINDU POLYANDRY. 



83 



aboriginal races of India the practice of polyandry 
prevailed largely. It exists now amongst the Todas, 
who are of pure Tamil blood, on the Nilghiri Hills, 
amongst the Kandyans of Ceylon, although there is 
reluctance to admit the fact, and also, I believe, 
arnon^ the Coords. From some texts in Menu *, it 
would seem that in early Hindu society it was per- 
mitted to the Sudras, and in the epic poem of the 
Mahabharat the five brothers Pandu are married to 
the same woman. I have often observed that in the 
pure Hindu society of the Deccan the uncle is re- 
garded with quite as much affection and respect as the 
father, which would seem to indicate that there also 
the practice formerly existed. But probably the most 
remarkable form of marriage which ever existed 
is that which prevails among the Nairs of Malabar. 
The Nairs are the military cast and aristocracy of 
that portion of India, although strictly they are only 
Sudras. Until the conquest of their country by 
Hyder Ali, in 1759, the reigning families in the 
different rajahships were all of this cast. "With 
them the custom is, for a woman on marriage 
not to leave her mother's house, or even to consort 
with her husband. It is his duty to provide her 
with clothing, food, and ornaments, but he is not 
recognised as father of her children; and, indeed, 
usually is not so, for temporary wedlock is allowed to 
her with any one, provided he be of equal or higher 
cast to herself. On the death of her mother, the 

* <: Menu/' c. ix. p. 59, 64, 66. 

Gr 2 



84 



A BIRD'S -EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



wedded Nairine lives with her brothers; and, as a 
consequence of this strange ordinance, a man's heirs 
are not his own children, for he knows them not, but 
the children of his sister. 

The Zamorin of Calicut, who was the reigning 
prince on the Malabar coast, when the Portuguese 
under Yasco de Gama first effected a settlement in 
1498, belonged to the Nair cast, and his descendants 
are to be found there to the present day, the eldest 
son of the eldest sister always succeeding to the 
vacant musnud. Ibn Batuta found the same rule of 
succession in operation when he travelled through 
Malabar about a. d. 1340. 

Dr. Buchanan Hamilton, who made a very interest- 
ing tour through Mysore, and the countries con- 
quered from Tipu Sahib in 1800, has given some 
instructive details on this subject, but I have never 
met with an explanation of the motives which induce 
the husbands of Malabar to undertake the burthens 
of matrimony under circumstances which seem to hold 
out so little temptation for entering on wedded life. 



HINDU SELF- GOVERNMENT. 



85 



CHAPTER XY. 

Self- Government among the Hindus. — Organisation of Hindu ^Village. 
— Duties of a Hindu Sovereign. 

If Hindu society be looked at as a whole, it will 
be found that one of the main effects of the infinite 
subdivisions of cast has been to produce a large 
amount of self-government. The government of the 
state has always been looked upon by Hindus as a 
necessary burthen, and as a matter of indifference to 
them whether it be exercised by one dynasty or 
another. 

Asiatic governments, having interfered on few 
points with the social life of the subjected people, 
have necessarily left much of their internal regula- 
tions to themselves. In the provinces, a Hindu 
village is almost exclusively sroverned bv its own here- 
ditary officers, and by the influence of age, and the 
weight obtained by intelligence and good character, 
operating on the public opinion of its inhabitants. 
In towns the different casts exercise a strong social 
control over their members, and are enabled to regu- 
late many matters which in other countries require 
the interposition of the law. It may be observed, 
however, that in the Presidency cities,* and other 

* The seat of government, such as Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, is 
called, officially, the Presidency. 



86 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OE INDIA. 



parts of India, where the authority of the British 
Government is firmly established, the influence of 
cast authority is passing away, and necessarily so. 
Under the Mussalman government the civil disputes 
of their idolatrous subjects were regarded with in- 
finite contempt, and for want of an efficient tribunal 
to dispose of them, litigant Hindus were gladly dis- 
posed to invest the elders of their cast with power to 
decide between them. But it is clear that such 
power is founded only on opinion, and has nothing 
but the moral sanction by which to enforce its de- 
crees. So soon, then, as established tribunals are at 
hand, competent and willing to redress every social 
wrong, unless the patriarchal influence remains un- 
impaired, a preference will be shown to resort to the 
public responsible courts of the Government which 
have power to enforce the law, rather than to the 
irresponsible decrees of the self-elected leaders of cast. 

Up to the present time, each cast among the 
Hindus has been not only self-governed, and sepa- 
rately organised, but may be looked upon as a 
separate nation unconnected by blood, pursuits, or 
sympathies with the population around it. Hence it 
is that there is no such thing as Hindu public 
opinion; so long as a man preserves the good 
opinion of his cast, he may commit the gravest 
crimes against the general public, the grossest per- 
juries or frauds that would demand exclusion from 
society, still, if his cast is uninjured by him, he 
is not deemed to bear any blot on his escutcheon. 

With respect to the Hindus as subjects of govern- 



MUSSALMANS IN INDIA. 



87 



ment, it must be admitted they are the most docile 
and easily governed people in the world. Eminently 
addicted to commerce and the arts of peace (unlike 
in this respect, their Mussalman fellow-subjects, to 
whom war and its concomitants are the congenial 
pursuits), they desire nothing from Government but 
to be let alone. As it has been well observed in a 
late able report on the state of the Punjab, " it is 
remarkable that the Hindu races, whether converts 
to a foreign creed, or professors of their ancestral 
faith, consider themselves as subjects by nature, and 
born to obedience. They are disposed to regard 
each successive dynasty with equal favour or equal 
indifference; whereas the pure Mussalman races, 
descendants of the Arab conquerors of Asia, retain 
much of the ferocity, bigotry, and independence of 
ancient days. They look upon empire as their heri- 
tage, and consider themselves as foreigners settled m 
the land for the purpose of ruling it. They hate 
every dynasty except their own, and regard the 
British as the worst because the most powerful of 
usurpers." 

The writer is speaking here of the Mussalmans on 
the Indus, who are apparently made of sterner stuff 
than the Mahomedans of India, who appear to me an 
effete and worn-out race. The remarks, however, are 
uot less true as to the moral condition of the Maho- 
medans, who find themselves, under the British 
Government, excluded from the careers of honour 
and emolument which the military government of 
their own dynasties opened out to them, and who 



88 A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA 



have no aptitude or taste, like the Hindus, for 
peaceful pursuits. 

The most remarkable institution of Hindu govern- 
ment, however, is the village community, the orga- 
nisation of which dates from the most remote 
antiquity, and which has been established on prin- 
ciples so accordant to Hindu manners and civilisation, 
that its existence has remained unshaken by every 
change of dynasty which has occurred. In theory, 
and indeed in practice, a village is a small state in 
miniature, with its own government, its own lands, 
its own traders of every sort. Colonel Grant Duff' 
in his interesting "History of the Marathas," gives 
the Mowing account of a village in the Deccan :— 

" All the land in the country, with the exception 
of inaccessible mountains,- or places wholly unfre- 
quented, is attached to some one village. The 
boundaries of its lands are defined, and encroach- 
ments carefully resisted. The arable land is divided 
into fields; each field has a name, which, together 
with the name of the owner or occupant, is registered. 
The inhabitants are principally cultivators, and are 
now either Meerasdars or Ooprees. These names 
serve to distinguish the tenure by which they hold 
their lands. The Oopree is a mere tenant-at-will ; 
but the Meerasdar is a hereditary occupant, whom 
the government cannot displace so long as he pays 
the assessment on his field Besides the culti- 
vators and the regular establishment, there are other 
casts and trades in proportion to the size of each 
village. The complete establishment consists of a 



VILLAGE GOVERNMENT. 



89 



Patell, Koolkurnee, and Chowgula, with twenty-four 
persons called the Baruh Balowtay and Baruh Aloiv- 
tay. These twenty-four persons are of various trades 
and professions, necessary as artisans and public 
servants, or desirable on account of religious ob- 
servances and common amusements/' 

Few villages have their establishment complete; 
and it is only of the Bara Balanti, in a Hindu 
village, that a traveller ordinarily hears. 

A Deccan village is composed generally as fol- 
lows :— 

1. The carpenter. 

2. The blacksmith. 

3. The shoemaker or currier. A very low cast. 

4. The Mhar or Dher, who is of the very lowest 
cast, equivalent to the Pariah of Southern India, 
is not considered a Hindu by the people, and 
lives outside the village. But his duties are so 
important in the village, that the village establish- 
ment cannot get on without him. He acts as scout, 
guide, and an attendant upon travellers. He is the 
guardian of the village boundary, and removes car- 
casses and ordure of all kinds from the village ; is 
extremely filthy in his habits and diet; but the race 
to which he belongs is extremely active and intel- 
ligent. They are probably the aborigines of the 
country, whom the invading brahminical races 
subdued, and incorporated with the village com- 
munity in a subordinate position, 

5. The potter. 

6. The barber. 



90 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



7. The washerman. 

8. The guru, who is a Sudra, and is employed to 
attend the idol in the village temple. 

9. The astrologer, who is a Brahman. 

10. The goldsmith, who is an assayer of coins. 

11. The tailor. 

12. The mulla, or Mahomedan priest, who also, 
strangely enough, has become incorporated with th'e 
village community. 

Over all these rules the Pdtel, who is a sort of 
village mayor, and who reigns by hereditary succes- 
sion. He is usually of the Sudra, or cultivating 
cast; but his Kulkarni, or clerk, is a Brahman. 
The Brahmans generally, as it will be perceived, 
do not form part of the village corporation. They 
stand as "gods" (which is the original meaning of 
their name), apart from the vulgar herd, and only 
deign to live in the community, to accept their alms, 
and enjoy the fat of the land, as a special favour to 
those among whom they are located. 

The Patel, assisted by the rest of the establish- 
ment, manages everything connected with the culti- 
vation, and with the lands and common interests of 
the village. Each member of the Balauti receives 
a proportionate share of the produce of the land as 
his annual revenue. 

The Patel also exercises civil jurisdiction in vil- 
lage disputes, being assisted in most cases by assessors 
(usually five), whom he calls to his aid, and who are 
thence called the Panchaiat, which word, or its dimi- 
nutive, Panch (five), has become familiar to English 



DUTIES EXPECTED FROM GOVERNMENT. 91 



readers by its appearing so frequently in the corre- 
spondence from Lahore, during the period of the 
Seik dissensions and war. 

The village consultations take place either at the 
temple or at a rustic town-hall, which most villages 
possess; added to which, by a beneficent regard to 
the wants of travellers, it is considered the duty of 
the village authorities to provide a public building, 
or sarai (hence caravansary, or caravan-sarai), at 
which the wayfarer may find a gratuitous lodging. 

These village arrangements are so complete, that 
there is scarcely anything a Hindu requires from 
Government but protection from invasion, and con- 
dign punishment dealt out to malefactors. The 
reciprocal obligation on his part is to pay his quota 
of land revenue, by which armies and the requisite 
tribunals may be maintained. 

There is no country in the world, however, where 
the duties of a good ruler have been laid down more 
authoritatively, or where they have been more gene- 
rally recognised, than in India. The Dharma SMs- 
tra, or Holy Book of Duty, of Menu, pourtrays, in 
precepts that have fully penetrated the Hindu mind, 
the whole duty of a king ; and from the tablets of 
King Ashoka, still existing in India, and who 
recorded, 300 years before Christ, that "day and 
night he was occupied in promoting the welfare of 
his people," down to the present day, the duties of 
sovereignty have been fully appreciated and under- 
stood. If Hindu rajahs have too frequently forgotten 
the path of duty, and have manifested themselves as 



92 



A BIKd's-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



sensual or ruthless despots, rather than as beneficent 
rulers, the submissive Hindu attributes it to the "iron 
age" in which we live; he may consider it a barra 
zulam (great tyranny), but he is never blind to the 
fact that the precepts of God and duty towards man 
have been violated. 



PUBLIC WORKS OF THE ENGLISH. 



93 



CHAPTER XVI. 



Influence of the English in India.— Public Works.— Education.— 
Christianity. — Future of India. 

It has been often remarked that if the English 
were to leave India to-morrow, there would not be a 
trace of their dominion discoverable twenty years 
hence. And there is some truth in the observation. 
The English are not a monumental race : their great- 
ness as a nation has sprung principally from the free 
scope given to individual energy, not from grand 
movements directed by the government embodying 
the national will. But private individuals cannot erect 
Parthenons, or Taj Mahals, or construct Roman 
roads and aqueducts. Architecture in all countries 
has principally put forth her efforts in behalf of 
religion, but especially so in India. The Mussalman 
princes of Delhi and Agra expended all their surplus 
revenues in mosques and tombs. The Portuguese 
crowded as many churches into their small towns in 
India as might have sufficed for a moderately sized 
kingdom. The English religious sects of India, on 
the other hand, are content, and, indeed, for the most 
part, are obliged to erect their modest tabernacles out 
of their own resources. 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



But the last ten years have witnessed some noble 
undertakings in India, and England has placed her 
mark on the country in characters that will probably 
be legible for ages. The great high-road from Calcutta 
to Delhi and the north-west, is the finest highway 
ever constructed in modern times by a government, 
and it certainly is the longest, extending in its pro- 
jection to nearly eleven hundred miles, and there is 
nothing in Europe comparable to it. This road, 
however, even before it is finished, is doomed to be 
superseded by the railways, which are making sure, 
though rather slow, progress in their efforts to 
envelope India in an iron net-work. The great 
Ganges canal also is a permanent monument of 
British engineering, and the works for irrigation in 
the Madras Presidency, executed and in contemplation, 
are some of them gigantic. 

But it is the moral influence which is the most 
interesting to mark and speculate on. How much of 
the patrimony of European ideas have the English 
introduced into India, what onslaught has been made 
by the laws of positive knowledge and inductive 
reasoning on the vague, dreamy generalities which 
the Hindus hitherto have been willing to accept as 
science and philosophy ? In one view of the matter, 
perhaps, the English have not much to boast of in 
this respect. As a general rule, the natives, I think, 
are not disposed to yield the same pre-eminence to 
their European lords in wisdom and intellectual 
qualities that they willingly admit in mechanical 
arts and physical powers. So far as my means of 



MORAL INFLUENCE OE THE ENGLISH. 



observation enable me to form an opinion, the Hindus 
look upon the English as a race who have admirable 
contrivances for applying combined labour to the 
purposes of life, who are reckless and daring in war, 
" those English devils/' as the Chinese called us, but 
who are inferior to themselves in diplomacy, civil 
wisdom, and government. We have signally failed 
in introducing our religion, and the publicity given 
by the press to every case of European malfeasance 
has not impressed the natives with the superiority 
of our morality. 

On the other hand, the deep root which the study 
of the English language and its literature has struck 
into the native mind furnishes a lever by which it is 
inevitable that, sooner or later, the inert mass of 
Asiatic ideas and superstitions will be stirred up and 
vivified. Hinduism cannot survive science or 
independent inquiry. It is impossible for readers of 
Lord Bacon to believe in Hunimam or the elephant- 
headed god. It may, I think, be confidently anti- 
cipated that the intellectual movement introduced by 
the English into India cannot be arrested, and that it 
is destined to work mighty changes, both religious 
and political. What religious phase the Hindu 
mind will assume, and Hindus have such a decided 
religious tendency that mere scepticism does not seem 
probable, is one of the most mysterious problems 
which a speculator can propose to himself. I confess 
I can see no daylight in the horizon, and am unable 
to hazard a prediction. 

As to politics, speculation may soar more boldly. 



96 



A BIKd's-EYE VIEW OP INDIA. 



The effect of our European education is undoubtedly 
to emancipate the human mind, to investigate the 
origin, the stabdity, and the value of all existing 
institutions, and to trace the causes bj which nations 
become eitfier free or enslaved. Whether we desire 
it or not, our educational efforts undoubtedly tend to 
make the Hindus able to govern themselves. I think 
the object is a noble one, and that to propose to 
ourselves anything more restricted would be a dere- 
liction of our duty. I am not sanguine that this object 
will ever be attained; centuries probably will have to 
pass over before the Hindus are fit for political self- 
government; but if ever the moment should arrive 
when the two or three hundred millions who will then 
people Hindustan shall have become under the bene- 
ficent guidance of their European rulers a nation of 
freemen, I think all history as well as aU political 
economy may convince us that in those days India 
will be of more value to us as a powerful, intelligent 
and wealthy ally than she ever can be in her present 
depressed and impoverished state. 

Eor, to make a final remark in this bird's-eye 
sketch, it must never be forgotten, notwithstanding 
the repeated common-places one hears as to the 
wealth of India, that poverty is the characteristic of 
the land. The simple wants and the charitable 
habits produced by their religion intervene to prevent 
the cares of poverty being felt as they are bv the 
most impoverished classes in Europe; still, the frame 
of Hindu society tends to keep the mass of society in 
inextricable straits, and the improvident habits and 



HINDU EXTRAVAGANCE. 97 

vain-glory which induce the Hindu villager to pledge 
a life's labour for the festival of a single night, dis- 
courage all accumulation, and prevent the rise and 
formation of independent middle classes. 



END OE PART I. 



PART II. 



JOURNAL OF A VACATION TRIP IN INDIA, THROUGH 
RAJPUTANA, THE NORTH-WEST PROVINCES. AND 
NEPAL. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

MODES OF TRAVELLING IN INDIA. 



Journey from Bombay to Baroda. 

Bombay, November 24th, 1850.— Left Bom- 
bay this morning at 9 a.m., by steamer, on a long- 
contemplated trip to the Upper Provinces* of 
India. There are two modes of travelling in 
India : one, and the most agreeable, is to travel with 
a large retinue of servants— (I heard the other day 
that Lord Dalhousie, on coming down the mountains 
from Simla on his march to Sind, had no fewer than 
eleven thousand porters to carry his baggage)— and 
by this means you pass from one station to another 
by an easy morning ride, and pursue all your usual 
avocations as if you were at home, with little other 
change than a fresh view every day from the door 
of your tent. The other mode is to disencumber 

* This is the term usually used to designate the northern parts of 
India as distinguished from Bengal. 



TJirP THROUGH UPPETl INDIA. 



99 



yourself of all baggage 5 to have no servants, or at 
most only one; and to trust to the most speedy con- 
veyance of every country you travel through — camel- 
back, horseback, elephant-back, palanquin-post— to 
attain your destination. This latter mode is indis- 
pensable when the distances are great and time is 
pressing; and I adopt it on the present occasion, 
when the point I make for is Lahore, distant 1300 
miles, and a great portion of the journey I shall 
only be able to accomplish at a foot's pace. 

I bring with me, therefore, only a palanquin, four 
tin boxes, containing the clothes and kit of myself and 
one servant, a saddle with saddle-bags, and a sharp 
pair of spurs. Many people in Bombay think me 
mad to set out on such a tour, leaving behind me all 
the comforts of civilised life, and encountering 
willingly many privations ; and my old friend Sir 
Willoughby Cotton, with whom I dined last night, 
was rather amusing in his endeavours to dissuade 
me from a trip " through a thousand miles of 
jungle, where I should not meet one civilised being 
or gain one new idea/' But I prefer infinitely 
the excitement of a journey through a new and 
romantic country, where every nook has its tale and 
every peak its legend, to the dull monotony of an 
Indian hill-station, and anticipate much greater 
pleasure in visits to the Taj at Agra, and to the Sikh 
cities of Lahore and Amritsir, than all the prospects 
which the ensuing gay season (so-called) at Bombay 
can afford. 

Travelling from Bombay northward or southward 

H 2 



100 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



has been much ameliorated, even since I arrived in 
India in 1841, by the introduction of packet- 
steamers ; and to Surat, which is 190 miles north of 
Bombay, various boats ply two or three times a week. 
Directly, therefore, I found that the business of term 
would allow me to get away by to-day, I wrote to 
Surat for a small boat to meet me at the bar of the 
Tapti river, and embarked on board the Sir James 
Rivett Carnac in Bombay harbour. 

25th. — Twenty-two hours brought me to the bar 
of the Surat river (called by the old voyagers who used 
to frequent these waters, the Swally); but I found 
no boat there, and learnt that the friend to whom I 
had written was in the provinces on official duty. 
So I was obliged to proceed with the steamer thirteen 
miles up the river to the ancient town of Surat, and 
take my chance of finding a small sailing-boat there 
to convey me to my further destination, Tankaria 
Bunder, a small port fifty miles further north. 
Although this was a contretemps, speed being an 
element of my scheme, I bore it with equanimity, 
not to say satisfaction, as the fortunes of travel had 
given me two agreeable companions in the persons of 
the skipper's wife and her mother-in-law, a loqua- 
cious old lady from Mauritius. The former was a 
pretty young girl, not eighteen, only married three 
months ; and, with the confidence and expansiveness 
so common amongst the English in India, she told 
me sufficient of her heart's history to make our 
pacings up and down the deck very agreeable. 

Baroda, Nov. 29th.— At Surat I was fortunate 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



101 



enough to find the collector's boat lying idle, and a 
friend I met there, young Bellasis, of the Civil 
Service, put it at my disposal. To get a crew of 
eight men was an affair of ten minutes; and, after 
lunching at Surat, where my friend roasted a fowl 
for me and gave me a couple of loaves for sea- 
stores, I started with, the ebb-tide at 4 p.m. on the 
25th, en route for Tankaria, distant sixty-eight 
miles, thirteen of which were river. But these 
Indian rivers try the patience of a traveller, and the 
space which I skimmed over in an hour and a 
quarter, with a steamer and the flood, took me many 
weary hours to re-measure in my native craft ; and, 
when I rose next morning, I found myself very 
little advanced in the Gulf of Cambay, with a strong 
head- wind, and an assurance from the tindal* that 
there was no reaching Tankaria that day. My cold 
fowl of yesterday now came into play, and a leg and 
wing with a bottle of soda-water formed the dinner 
for myself and dog. 

The tide in the Gulf of Cambay runs so strong 
that boats going northwards are obliged to anchor at 
every ebb; and at 2 p.m. we accordingly did so. 
But in the evening, when the tide began to make, I 
found that my crew exhibited no symptoms of under- 
taking a night voyage, although there was a fine 
moon ; so I had to stimulate them into action, and 
at six next morning, when I woke, I found we were 
at anchor in the mud about a quarter of a mile from 
the Custom-House jetty, or Bunder, which was my 



Native term for the skipper of a small boat. 



102 



A BIRD's-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



destination. I was carried through the mud on a 
board, and got my palanquin and things on shore, 
where I found that forty palanquin-bearers had been 
sent down for me, with a light tonjon, a Sani* camel, 
and some troopers for an escort, by his Highness the 
Gaikwar,t in order to convey me to his capital of 
Baroda, forty-two miles distant. I started as soon as 
the people were collected from the village three 
miles off, and got under weigh about 9 a.m., and 
reached my first stage, a village fourteen miles off, 
at 1 p.m. I here learnt that a Sahib J was encamped 
in a tent ; and, on the principle laid down for tra- 
vellers in India by Baron von Hiigel, that " every 
white man you meet in India is a friend and every 
black one a slave/' I made off at once to his tent for 
the chance of getting a breakfast. I found the 
Sahib to be a young civil engineer, who was making 
a sketch-survey of a railway between Baroda and the 
coast ; but I no sooner looked my host in the face 
than I perceived that all hopes in the eating line 
were little likely to be gratified, for he crawled out of 

* These are the light camels or dromedaries trained specially for 
the riding of native chiefs. 

f The difficulties of representing Indian sounds by English ortho- 
graphy are well exemplified in the name of this Maratha chieftain. 
It is written in its original tongue Gayakawad, but the infinite varieties 
under which it appears in an English dress, Guicowar, Gickowar, Gaek- 
war, Gaikwad, &c. &c., are well known to all readers of modern 
Indian literature. 

$ This is the name universally given by natives to the English in 
India. It means literally Lord, or Master, and does not indicate un- 
fitly the relation deemed to exist between the Europeans and the 
native population. 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



his tent to receive me, emaciated with fever, and lie 
evidently had taken nothing more substantial than 
an orange for days past. The remaining wing of my 
chicken, however, came into play, and the engineer's 
native servant baked me some apps, cakes like Scotch 
bannocks, but made of jowaii (holcus sorghum), and 
they were excellent. I had still thirty miles before 
me to Baroda, which I was anxious to reach that 
night J and as I heard that a horse was waiting for 
me at the last stage, ten miles from Baroda, I per- 
suaded my bearers to push on with me after two 
hours' rest, and I started again at 3 p.m. It took 
me till midnight to accomplish these twenty miles, 
and I cantered in from the last stage with a bright 
moon, such as the tropics only offer, in full glory, and 
reached the Residency, as the abode of the English 
minister at a native court is called, a little after 1 a.m. 

The minute account of this day's work shows that, 
with the lightest luggage possible, — in fact, with 
nothing but myself to carry, and with all the resources 
of a native prince placed at my disposal,— it took me 
sixteen hours to accomplish forty-four miles. 



104 



A BIRTHS-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Baroda.— The GaikwaYs Levee.— Elephant Fight. 

My friend Captain French, who was resident at 
the Gaikwar's Court, and to whom I was indebted 
for all these facilities of travel, was in bed when I 
arrived, but he got up to receive me, and we sat 
down to supper and talkee-talkee, which occupied us 
agreeably till past three. 

Next morning I made arrangements for pushing 
on my servant a-head with palanquin, light tonjon, 
and a Sani camel; and they started that evening, so 
as to make three marches in advance, and I am' to 
follow them on the 1st by a ride of sixty-five miles. 

Nov. 30th.— Yesterday I went to his Highness's 
durbar to kiss hands. I had been received in state 
at the same court by his father, three years previously, 
and I well recollected the striking feature of i 
magnificent avenue of elephants, one hundred and 
twenty in number, with torches borne on each, which 
lined the principal entrance to the palace, when our 
cortege approached. The levee to-day was by day- 
light, and his Highness sent carriages for us at 4 p.m. 
The city was crowded with spectators— twenty thou- 
sand, at least, must have been collected to see three 
or four very ill-dressed Englishmen (myself, Trench, 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



105 



and two other gentlemen of the residency) descend at 
the palace-gate. We were received there by the 
Dewan, or hereditary Premier, who took me by the 
hand and led me up a staircase, dark, steep, and 
narrow (staircases are always defective in Hindu 
architecture) to the durbar-room, where the Maha- 
Eajah met us at the entrance. After shaking us by 
the hand, he caused all his family to do the same, in 
order of birth, down to the children in arms ; then, 
taking me by the hand, he led me through the saloon 
to the gadi * at the further end of the room, through 
lines of courtiers on each side. He there placed me 
and our party on chairs to his left, and the different 
noblemen and people of his court were brought up to 
be introduced, their names being shouted out by 
a sort of nomenclator and repeated to us by the 
rajah. 

I may remind such readers as are not familiar with 
Indian matters that the small principality of which 
Baroda is the capital was one of those carved out 
from the declining Mogul empire by the enterprising 
Marathas during the last century, and it is ruled over 
by a Maratha dynasty, whose language and habits 
are wholly different from those of the native Guja- 
ratis. On seeing the whole court assemble, as I did 
on this occasion, I was much struck at the absence 
of anything like a Gujarati gentleman; all the public 
employments are filled by Marathas, and, I must say, 
I never saw so ill-favoured a nobility or bureaucracy 



* Literally, cushions, which are placed on a rich carpet on 
ground, and form the Hindu throne. 



106 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OP INDIA, 



m my life. But the Marathas everywhere are an 
ugly, uncultivated race, and it is only by the aid of 
the numerous brahmans who are settled among them, 
and who form a very large portion of the population 
m Maharashtra, that they have been enabled to 
conduct civil government at all. The Pe'shwa, or 
maire du palais, of the great Maratha kingdom, it 
will be recollected, was a brahman. 

At the end of the Gaikwar's reception or durbar- 
room, a nach, or dance by professional dancing-girls, 
was going on, as is usual at all native receptions, and 
one of the girls was pretty enough, which, according 
to my experience, is somewhat exceptional among 
these figurantes. All this ceremony occupied at least 
an hour, and, in the interval, the chandeliers were 
lighted, which increased the heat. His Highness 
occupied the intervals with talking to Captain French 
and me and playing with his little daughters, who 
were crawling over the cushions, while another 
daughter, with a blot on her 'scutcheon— a Miss 
Fitz-Gaikwar — sat respectfully a few feet off the 
royal gadi. We began to get bored; so French 
respectfully intimated that he had a dinner-party 
waiting for him at home, when the ceremony of pan- 
supari* commenced, which lasted another full half- 
hour, it being the duty of the hereditary dewan, or 
prime minister (a nominal post, however, the occu- 

* The handing round of betel-nut, or rather the nut of the areca 
palm wrapped in a leaf of the betel-pepper plant, and a little pounded 
lime for mastication, is equivalent to, but much more universal than, 
our custom of handing wine and cakes to visitors. 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



107 



pant being a Purvoe,* and representative of a very 
able man who assisted the British in their first 
alliance with this state), to present the betel-nut to 
each of the nobles present— an office which the 
Gaikwar himself discharges to English guests of 
rank— and we took leave. The effect, on my mind, 
of the Maratha levee was unfavourable. The whole 
thing was mesquin. The prince and his family were 
covered with jewels, but, being ill-set and uncut, 
they made the impression only of " barbaric pearl 
and gold/' not of magnificence ; and his principal 
chiefs had such a besotted, stupified look, without 
either the vigour of soldiers or the refinement of 
courtiers, that I could not help feeling great contempt 
for the whole show. Wherever there is power, one 
involuntarily feels respect. I daresay, at Bhokara, 
or Merv, or at some such inland state, where foreign 
influence is not predominant, one would regard every 
institution with much interest; but, at a court like 
the Gaikwar' s, where there is no display of taste, 
where meanness in every quarter predominates over 
the magnificent, where all the ideas and occupations 
that one hears of are the most trifling and insigni- 
ficant, and where nothing great, either for good or 
for harm, ever enters into the mind of any one, the 
only feeling which comes over one is that of pity or 
(worse) contempt. 

Nothing could exceed, however, the disposition of 
his Highness to be kindly towards me. I was the 



* A Hindu cast of writers who were much favoured under the 
Peshwa's government. 



108 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



first stranger of any position who had visited his 
court since his accession, and the power of the 
British in India is now so fully established, that the 
minds of these native princes are deeply impressed 
with it; and when they are not sulky, they are 
extremely desirous to cultivate friendly relations with 
the authorities. A traveller like myself profits by 
this disposition, and wherever I go I find my path 
smoothed and little attentions paid which, though 
they cost little, are extremely valuable to one going 
as fast and as little provided with u superflu w as I 
am. He was desirous to give me a dinner the next 
day— this we declined ; he then proposed a visit to 
his garden, where he had just built a villa, and we 
were to see an elephant fight before leaving. The 
next day, accordingly, we went to another palace in 
the city, at 3 p.m., where we found his Highness, and 
were received as the day before, shaking hands with 
all the family, but with only one or two of the chiefs 
there; and then the Gaikwar conducted me through 
a most dilapidated court to a fine enclosure, or 
amphitheatre, some three or four hundred feet long, 
which would have accommodated 100,000 specta- 
tors; and in an idle city like Baroda, of 130,000 
inhabitants, spectators are never wanting. We 
found, however, there was only one elephant must, 
and accordingly a fight was not practicable, for it is 
only whilst in that state of periodical excitement that 
they become savage. The enclosure, however, was 
occupied with from twenty to thirty matadores, who 
were prepared to encounter the single must elephant, 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 109 



who was soon driven in, with lieel-ropes attached to 
hiin. As soon as these were taken off, the matadores, 
or teazers, began annoying him in all possible ways, 
holding up to him pieces of bright-coloured cloth, 
pricking him with spears, &c, and the sport — 
if sport it can be called — is to see him chase his 
tormentor, with the certainty that the latter will be 
killed if he is caught. The elephant was extremely 
savage, and on one or two occasions very nearly 
caught his persecutor — so nearly, that Captain Batty e 
sitting next to me, and who had not seen these 
tilings before, nearly fainted ; but when the elephant 
was within a couple of feet — i.e., his extended trunk 
was within that distance of the fugitive — some of the 
others fired rockets in his face, which stopped him. 
The speed of an elephant is greater than that of a 
man, and even these tame ones, when they get into 
their long trot, seem capable of running down the 
swiftest runner. The present elephant was very 
savage, and wherever he succeeded in getting hold of 
a cloth held out to him, he was down on his knee in 
an instant, crushing it, and showing well what his 
mode of dealing with an enemy was. 

.This being over, the Gaikwar led the way to his 
cortege of Sowarry elephants, which were in attend- 
ance; and, after giving minute orders as to which 
should occupy which, he took Captain Trench and 
myself on his royal monture, the fourth of our partie 
quarree being his youngest daughter of three years 
old. "We thus proceeded (I for the first time) on an 
elephant, through the populous city, to his garden 



110 



A BIED's-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



house, a villa built in the English style of Indian 
architecture, and in the midst of a large, tasteless 
garden. The house presented a novelty, however, in 
being surrounded by a pond architecturally con- 
nected with the house, and full of gold fish. His 
Highness seemed much pleased with the notion ; and, 
after showing us over the house, we all took our seats 
in the principal drawing-room, where the usual cere- 
monies were performed, i.e., the nach girls danced, 
the pan-supari was given, necklaces of flowers were 
put over our heads, and we took our leave, I bidding 
my adieu with thanks to his Highness for the kindness 
he had shown me. 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



Ill 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Long Ride before Breakfast— Details of Cortege on march.— Descrip- 
tion of Gujarat— Man murdered on line of march. 

Dec. 1st.— Yeerpore. Left Baroda this morning at 
half-past 5, and reached this place, eighty-eight miles, 
at half-past 10 p.m. I was enabled to make this 
great stretch by having sent off all my things, three 
days before, to Balasinore, sixty-four miles ; and by 
now following them on horseback, with saddle-bags 
and a paper of sandwiches. Captain French accom- 
panied me the first six miles, till the day broke, and 
then I made the best of my way, so well, on six 
horses, that I reached Balasinore at 1 p.m., having 
only stopped for twenty minutes under a banyan- 
tree, to eat my sandwiches and drink a bottle of 
soda-water. 

At Balasinore, which is a fort belonging to a 
Mussalman chief, under our Raj, and situated in 
the midst of a very barren jungle, the nawab came 
out to meet me, with a few horse. He and three or 
four of his followers presented a much more gentle- 
manlike appearance than anything I had seen at the 
Gaikwar's court ; and he was exceedingly pressing in 
his hospitality that I should spend a day with him, 
to have some shooting, either tiger or hog. As I 
had come so fast, however, and time pressed with me, 



112 A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



I had made up my mind to push on with my palkie 
that day, to this place, as soon as I had dined ; so I 
was forced to decline, with thanks • and the nawab 
left me to dine in a tent which he had pitched for 
me by the side of a pond, promising to call in the 
afternoon. 

My servant Ibrahim now cooked for me my first 
dinner, and gave me an excellent boiled fowl a la 
blaize, which, with a couple of glasses of water, I 
enjoyed more, after my sixty-four miles through the 
sun, than any dinner from the best French' cook in 
Bombay. I had started from Baroda with a bad 
headache, but I had ridden it off in the first twenty 
miles, and, now, never felt better. At three, the nawab 
paid me his promised visit, and I now found why he was 
so desirous to conciliate me. He had got into some 
altercation, it seems, with a neighbouring chief — the 
Rajput Rajah of Lunawarra — and hearing that I was a 
great man, he was desirous to make a friend of me. I 
could scarcely understand his grievances, and could not 
at all make him understand that I was merely a traveller 
for pleasure, without any power at all; so I promised 
him I would convey his views to Colonel Lowe, the 
governor-general's agent for Rajputana, under whom 
the Lunawarra chief is. Accordingly, I had not been 
long at this place before the nawab sent me a letter, 
in Gujarati, to which I have promised to reply, and 
must send him an answer from TJdipur. I then got 
into my tonjon at 4 p.m., and gave my palkie empty 
to the bearers, and putting Ibrahim on the camel, we 
got into this place at half-past ten, and in five minutes 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 113 



I was asleep in my clothes, lying on a native rizai 
(padded cotton cloth), in the chaori (or town-hall, in 
language of pomp, but open shed, in sober truth) of 
this village. 

This morning (2nd) I have occupied myself with 
reading the overland news of October 24th, and 
writing this Journal; and I hope to be able to get 
under weigh for my next stage by 12 a.m. 

Dec. 3rd.— I left Yeerpore yesterday at half-past 
one, and reached Pandu Bakore, twenty-two miles, at 
half-past six— good travelling. We were now in the 
territories of the rajah of Lunawarra ; and he, having 
heard of my coming, had sent some horsemen, with 
orders to supply my wants. This is extremely useful 
when one arrives at one of these out-of-the-way 
villages, where Europeans are scarcely ever seen, 
especially when one arrives in the evening ; for there 
is a number of wants to be supplied : fuel to boil the 
pot, rice, &c, for the men, provender for the horses, 
milk for the sahib's tea, and a lodging for the whole, 
to be provided. The latter was first pointed out to 
us under a fine banyan tree outside the town, and 
which would have been excellent for a tent, but as we 
had none, my people demurred, and we were led back 
to the town, and, under the authority of the rajah's 
horsemen, took possession of two shopkeepers' veran- 
dahs, in which the men placed themselves, and soon 
lit their fires, smoked their pipes, and drank their 
water ; for, as a general rule, the Hindus never eat 
more than one meal a day ; and it is so inconvenient to 
do more when travelling, that I myself adopt the same 



114 



A BIBl/s-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



custom, and think myself lucky if I get a cup of tea 
in the evening. Yesterday, for instance, my break- 
fast and dinner combined, came off at 11 a.m., and con- 
sisted of a fried fish and some rice ; and as the bearers 
with my kettle did not get up, by some mistake, till 
12 p.m., I did not get my tea. Having made this 
day but a short march, I stimulated my bearers to 
make a long march of thirty-four miles on the follow- 
ing day, by the promise of a sheep for dinner, and 
arranged that they should all leave at 3 a.m., and 
that I would follow them at daylight, on the Sani 
camel, and go the first twenty-four miles to breakfast. 
I accordingly took out my pillow and blanket from 
the palanquin, and they made me a bed in the 
verandah. They all started at half-past two, and I 
followed them at daylight (6 a.m.), with four 
horsemen. 

I have not mentioned the details of my cortege. 
I have thirty-six bearers for the palkie and tonjon ; 
but the former is so heavy, with its library of books, 
its imperial, &c, that I am unwilling to go in it, 
and have not yet entered it, except when, as now, 
passing the day inside, reading and writing. The 
Gaikwar has lent me a Sani camel — that is, a swift- 
riding dromedary — who can easily go seven miles an 
hour when pushed. I have also an escort of ten 
horse, commanded by a purvoe, Narro Dilvi, a rela- 
tion and hanger-on of the Purvoe Dewan whom I 
mentioned before, and who has a revenue of about 
10,000£. a year guaranteed by our Government. His 
poor relations consequently flock around him ; and the 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 115 



present one, I suppose, may enjoy a revenue of 
fifty or sixty rupees a month (five or six pounds) out 
of his command of ten horse, which he holds in the 
dewan's paga, or regiment. The purvoe has two 
camels for his baggage, and for the rowti, or small tent, 
also sent for me by the Gaekwar ; and, with the fol- 
lowers of his troop, we amount to near seventy souls. 
Starting at six, I reached this place (twenty-four 
miles) at half-past ten, and was much pleased with 
the motion of a camel, which I had never before 
experienced, and which people in Bombay had de- 
scribed to me as rough and unpleasant. I got my 
dinner (an engrossing event with travellers and 
diarists), consisting of cold fowl and tea, at 1 p.m., 
intending to start again at five ; but a cortege from 
the village came up, with an account of a sepoy 
having been murdered by Bhils that morning, on the 
route we were going ; and my people thereupon were 
so solicitous to make the next march by daylight, 
that I have resolved to postpone my departure till 
to-morrow morning at daybreak. 

The country I have come through for the last 
forty miles has completely lost its Gujarati character, 
— that is, exceedingly rich deep alluvial soil, without 
the intermixture of a pebble, and bearing the richest 
crops of cotton, just coming into flower ; of tobacco, 
two feet high; of wheat, just peeping above the sur- 
face, and which has been planted since the harvest of 
the Karif crops has been reaped ; interspersed plen- 
tifully with patches of sugar-cane, and scattered over 
the whole, in boundless profusion, magnificent trees;, 

i 2 



116 



A BIKERS-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



such as the tamarind, and mango, and banyan, 
whose luxuriance is so great that if Milton had 
known of them he surely would not have cited those 
of " Malabar or Deccan." 

This mention of the general face of Gujarat 
reminds me, that whilst in Baroda, Captain French 
urged me to take some shares in the railway which 
he was projecting between Baroda and the sea (forty- 
five miles), and to write him a letter, which should 
be published in the "Manchester Guardian/' I 
rather demurred to the latter part of the proposal, on 
the ground that whatever authority the Chief Justice 
might be in law, he was none on roads ; but my host 
was so earnest with me, and so enthusiastic in his 
scheme, that I felt myself compelled to comply j and 
I afterwards saw my letter paraded in numerous 
railway prospectuses. The above description of Gu- 
jarat is a true portrait of the portion of country 
between Tankaria and Baroda, and of many other 
districts that I have seen ; but another main feature 
should be mentioned — its remarkable levelness, a 
perfect billiard-table to the eye; and as the soil is 
exceedingly retentive of water, large lake-like ponds, 
much frequented by water-fowi, are met with at every 
village throughout Gujarat Proper. But in the direc- 
tion which I have now taken from Baroda, the soil 
becomes more sandy immediately on leaving the city ; 
and about fifty miles N. and by W., one first comes 
on some veins of quartz cropping out, and tabular 
rock, the country still preserving its level. Every 
succeeding five miles has brought me more closely to 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



117 



this primitive formation; quartz in abundance, and 
schistose hornblende, nearly vertical, with a dip to 
N.E., coming constantly to the surface; and the 
country exceedingly barren, being both waterless and 
without villages, though for the last forty miles 
covered with jungle of teak and dak {Buteafrondosa), 
though but little undergrowth; and, therefore, I 
cannot account for its bad reputation for fever. It 
is, however, the western extremity of the ill-omened 
Beryah jungle which has at times proved so destruc- 
tive to European life. The villages which I have 
passed in this morning's march are different from any 
that I have seen in India, as they consist of detached 
houses, each with a field to it, and looking like inde- 
pendent homesteads. 



118 



A BIHd's-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



CHAPTER XX. 



Description of Rajput Villages.— Bhil Aborigines— Architectural 

Wells. 

Dec. 4th.— Sangwarra, twenty- six miles. Owing to 
the wishes of my party, we did not get off till nearly 
seven, and did not arrive at this place till 5 p.m. 
Yesterday evening, the thakur of the village, as the 
feudal chief is called, paid me his respects— quite a 
nobleman in appearance, i.e. after the notion of Tom 
J ones, who, as Fielding tells us, was not well acquainted 
with the personal appearance of members of the Upper 
House. He and his friends around him expatiated much 
on the murder of the morning, and on the lawlessness 
of the Bhils in the neighbourhood,— one of his rela- 
tives stating that he had had a brother murdered 
four months before; and the thakur told me that he 
should send a further escort with me, next morning, 
of eight foot and two horsemen. I did not gather a 
very clear idea of the murder ; but it seemed that a 
bunnea, escorted by three footmen and one trooper, 
was attacked by Bhils, two of the sepoys were 
wounded and one killed ; but the bunnea made off in 
safety. Our party was sufficiently strong to have 
put to flight a hundred Bhils ; but I thought it well, 
for the sake of encouraging my bearers, to load my 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



119 



pistols, and I did so ostentatiously. We were de- 
tained in our march by the difficulty of getting 
bigarries (porters) to carry our loads. We only 
required ten ; but at some of the villages, so many 
are difficult to obtain. There appear to be three 
distinct races at these villages,— the Rajputs, whose 
free, independent, soldierly bearing distinguishes 
them at once; the Bhils, an aboriginal race, inferior 
in organisation, and having all the looks of an 
oppressed and depressed tribe ; and the Kumbis, or 
cultivators, who resemble those one meets with in 
the Deccan. The Bhils are made to do all the car- 
rying work, and are pressed into the service without 
any ceremony, and, so far as I can perceive, without 
pay (I speak with hesitation, however, for one never 
pays anything oneself, and it is only at the end of a 
journey that one's servant brings an account, written 
out by some karkun for him, of the monies he has 
laid out). If no Bhils are forthcoming, the Kumbis 
are made to do the work ; and one, who was pressed 
into a load to-day, but whose place was soon supplied 
by a Bhil whom we picked up in the fields after a 
couple of miles, on leaving us, after making a 
respectful salaam, observed, "I have done a very 
oreat thing to-day (bahot bara kia) /' with an amusing 
air of half-indignant expostulation. But no one ever 
thinks of suggesting that a Rajput should carry a 
load: they are the acknowledged aristocrats of the 
country, the dominant race ; and they look it, both 
in looks and manner. I had never before seen such 
a head-man of a village as this thakur. The Deccan 



120 



A BIRD^-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



patel is only a cultivator, like the rest, and looks and 
lives like them; but this thakur stood amongst 
his people as distinguished from them in appearance 
and dress, as a middle-age baron from his serfs ; and 
he belonged, as they told me, to one of the distin- 
guished families of Eajasthan. His house was enclosed 
with a high wall, and I first of all took it for a fort; 
and in the court-yard I saw a few horses and troopers. 
And so, at all the villages I passed through, a few 
Rajputs, armed, &c, like soldiers, were to be seen 
sitting in idleness ; and I could not perceive that any 
of them engaged in cultivation or other useful call- 
ing ; nor, as I ascertained on the spot, do any from 
this part of the country enter our military service. 

On arriving at this place, which is a large town, 
we did not at first find a lodging. In most Hindu 
villages, there is a public building entirely for tra- 
vellers, maintained, not by Government, but by the 
community; and an immense convenience to way- 
farers it is. Indeed, in Europe we have no institu- 
tion at all of a similar character (possibly it is the 
climate which does not allow it) which does so much 
good at such little expense. The building which 
appeared to be the Chaori was an upper-storied one, 
and at an oriel window several Rajputs were sitting, 
who demurred to our admittance. I was accordingly 
placed down in my tonjon under a tree, where I 
remained for half-an-hour, an object of immense 
interest to a mob of two or three hundred, who 
speedily collected, and who probably do not see a 
European above once in two years, if so often. At 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 121 



last, my horsemen having found out the head-man of 
the town, here called a karbari, we were led by him 
under a handsome gateway to one of those architec- 
tural weUs which are distinguishing features m 
Gujarat. This one was about sixty feet deep, and 
approachable to its level by steps; and round and 
about it our whole party speedily made themselves 
comfortable. On inquiry, I ascertained that it was a 
Brahman of Udipur who had built this well about a 
hundred years ago, at an expense of 2000?. Its 
good state of repair, however, makes me doubt 
whether its age is so great as this, for Hindus rarely 
seem to touch the works left them by another. To 
conclude the clay's events— My meal of this day did 
not come off till 6 p.m., and consisted only of tea 
and the bajri (holcus spicatus) cakes, which my man 
Ibrahim makes very well. My bed is laid out in the 
palkie on the first landing of the well, and my 
tonjon beside it allows me to sit in it, and write my 
journal here on mv knee. This is not a very exciting 
or a very instructive life; but, after all, it is as good 
as an evening spent at the esplanade or band m 
Bombay. And I generally get from one to two 
hours a day of reading. My books hitherto have 
been " Orlando Furioso/' which I have never read, 
andFroude's "Nemesis of Faith," which I picked 
up at Baroda. 



122 A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



CHAPTER XXI. 



Early Morning Bath. — Advantages of Hindu Temples to Travellers. 
— Lake and Town of Salumba. 

Dec. 5th. — Aspar, twenty-four miles. I roused 
up my people at 3£ a.m., in order to make a 
morning march and arrive earlier at camp. I 
found my purvoe captain of horse already up, and 
I got a good lesson from him. The only serious 
inconvenience I have met with is the difficulty of 
finding a snug, cosy corner for a bath. I can read, 
write, eat, and sleep before an admiring mob with 
sang froid, but the little ineffable mysteries of bath- 
ing require, for my taste, privacy ; though Hindus, 
men and women, bathe freely before the world, and 
the latter with the utmost delicacy. But I am stray- 
ing from my morning's hint, which was, finding the 
purvoe bathing himself by moonlight. I imme- 
diately followed the same practice, and have given 
orders for a large chatty of water to be put by my 
bedside every night for early morning's use. It is rather 
cold with the thermometer down to forty (though up 
to eighty-one in the middle of the day), but very 
refreshing. 

Aspar has got at least three well-built temples in 
it, though a small town ; and in one of them, the 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



123 



tolerant Jain shopkeeper who did the honors of 
the town to us, allowed me to make my lodging. 
What a beneficent religion this Hindu is for those 
who profess it, and even those who laugh at it often 
profit greatly by its ordinances. To the poorest 
Hindu in every village there is an hotel, in the shape 
of a temple, where he will find lodgings, good com- 
pany, water, and, no doubt, if he is in actual want, 
food. The religion, entering as it does into every 
institution of life, is a perpetual source of amuse- 
ment to its votaries in their different festivals 
and processions ; (and where happiness can be pro- 
duced on easy and innocent terms, it is difficult 
to witness it? with regret!) and the morality 
it inculcates covers the country with wells and 
tanks. The temple I was in was, in external 
appearance, one of Shiva's — that is, it had the 
quadrangled ribbed, quasi -pyramidal steeple, over 
the shrine, with the prodomos before it, which in 
Shiva's temples contains the bull Fundi. In this Jain 
temple, however, there was only an elevated stone 
platform (on which my palanquin was placed), and m 
the sanctum sanctorum, instead of a monstrosity for 
a god, three sitting Bhudd-like figures, the centre 
one being of black marble with frizzled hair, and a 
fac-simile of what I have so often seen in old 
Buddhist caves. 

I did not get my meal (I cannot make distinctions 
between breakfast and dinner) till 6 p.m., having 
only had a cup of tea and biscuit at 4 a.m., and 
walked myself into a good appetite besides with a 



124 



A BIKI)'s-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



ten miles' walk. After dinner, when I pulled out my 
journal to amuse myself, or rather to kill half-an- 
hour, the cotton-wick in my little earthen saucer 
went out, and as my man had gone to cook his own 
dinner, I was obliged to sit in the dark chewing the 
cud of my own thoughts till bed-time. 

6th.— Salumba, thirteen miles. What a comfort 
it is, after all, to make a short march, and to get in, 
as I have done to-day, early! It is a perpetual 
struggle when one tries to push on from twenty to 
thirty miles a clay. The bearers fall sick or get 
knocked up ; one has to get up in the middle of the 
night, and arrives just as it is dark ; and one feels 
obliged, however few our wants ma/ be, to sacrifice 
even many of them. This morning the Sani camel 
fell ill, and Ibrahim had to walk the stage ; and one 
or two more bearers had fever (five out of the thirty- 
six had already returned to Baroda from this cause) ; 
so I was right glad when we reached this town, and 
seated ourselves on the bank of a fine lake, to think 
that we were to spend the day here. My first enjoy- 
ment was to bathe in the lake, independent of the 
early morning cold— very cold— bath ; and I got a 
beautifully retired spot for dressing, and, in fact, for 
living in. On approaching the town, which is at the 
foot of hills without beauty, and in the completely 
desert country, through which I passed, I was 
wondering to myself what possible caprice could have 
selected the site for a town, and for the abode, as I 
knew it was, of one of the branches of the reigning 
house of Udipur; for it will generally be found 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 1^0 



that some good solid reason has prevailed in choosing 
localities. But on arriving at the lake I saw at 
once the solution of the difficulty in the fine expanse 
of water before me. 

The Eao (this is the title of the royal scion whose 
appanage this is) has just sent to me to say how 
happy he shall be to see me, and that he is pre- 
vented from calling himself as he is mourning for his 
father, who died about a month ago. I am glad 
enough to go and see his interior, and have sent word 
I will come, though possibly some old Indians would 
stand on etiquette, and require the first visit. 



1:26 



A BIRd's-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

The Deybar Lake. — Rao of Salumba. — Brahman Hospitalityi- 
Rajput Architecture. 

Dec. 7th. — Ginghleah, by Deybar Pal, twenty- 
four miles. 

8th.— Karrobar, thirteen miles. My makam, as 
they call the camping-place in this country, was 
so indifferent yesterday that I could not pull out 
my note-book; and having no light went to bed 
before eight. I had intended to describe my inter- 
view with the Rao; but there is not much to say 
of it, except that he received me in a little room 
hung round with looking-glasses and china pictures — 
that he insisted on the Hamalls who bore me to 
his door coming in to look about them, and that he 
bored me right royally with an account of his griev- 
ances, two-thirds of which I luckily did not under- 
stand. At parting he was very earnest with me to 
accept a pair of shawls, dagger, &c, which he 
presented me with, but of course I refused, and on his 
sending them again to my place in the evening by 
his kamdar (who, like all the managing authorities I 
Jiave seen yet in the towns, is of the Bannea cast, and 
not like himself a Rajput), I found my only refuge 
was by referring to the firmness with which Hindus 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. ] 27 



adhere to their customs, and the habit of the English 
to respect them ; and accordingly that the Hindus 
should be equally considerate to our custom. This ap- 
peal effectually stopped their clamorous generosity. 
Next morning I proceeded to what is called the Pal of 
the Deybar. The Deybar Lake is a fine piece of water 
about thirty miles in circumference, and is formed by 
an artificial band of masonry crossing a valley, the 
face of which hand towards the lake is very architec- 
tural and handsome, with six life-sized stone elephants 
on the steps on a level with the water, and extremely 
well sculptured. The erection must have cost a very 
large sum, and is creditable, both to the taste 
and the public spirit of the Eana who erected it, 
Jey Singh ; but the country is so sterile, and indeed 
mountainous around, that I cannot perceive this 
accumulation of water to be of much advantage, 
economically considered. There is also a castle of 
the Eana, with a temple, on a hill above the lake, 
which forms quite as picturesque an object as any of 
the castles on the Ehine ; but I understood that the 
Eanas never went to it, and it was consequently 
going to ruin. I had walked the twelve miles to the 
spot, on foot, and therefore did not feel inclined to 
mount the hill to inspect the locale. Whilst T was 
enjoying the scene on the Pal and the breeze which 
comes up very strong along the valley, a good-look- 
ing man— like a cultivator — walked up with a spear 
in his hand, and salaamed very graciously. I asked 
him who he was, and he replied with that conscious 
air of superiority and self-respect, which^owed that 



128 



A BIttD's-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



in his opinion nothing more need be said, " I am 
a Rajput/' and he appeared quite delighted when I 
expressed myself pleased with this u lion w of his 
country. I met also with the same feeling of self- 
respect this morning from a Brahman, from whom 
my purvoe captain of horse got some sugar-canes as 
we passed through some fields where cultivation was 
busily going on 5 and on his desiring to pay for them, 
the Brahman would not hear of it, but with a smile 
full of kindness of heart, said, "lama Brahman/' as 
much as to say, a man devoted to good works, — who 
scorns your dirty sixpences ; and he added that he 
was delighted to show attentions to a traveller. 
I do not give this man as a specimen of the cast 
Brahman, for they are generally a worldly race 
enough, but to show that generosity and doing good, 
for good's sake, displays itself in individuals of all 
casts and countries, and it is delightful to find it. I 
thus learnt, for the first time, to appreciate an inch or 
two of sugar-cane, as I had started this morning 
without a cup of tea, so perhaps I exaggerate the 
beneficence of my wayfaring friend. 

The country through which I have come has been 
almost a barren wilderness for the last 100 miles, 
though wherever they can get water the inhabitants 
use it plentifully for irrigation, and in the valley of 
to-day and yesterday a great breadth of wheat, and 
much sugar-cane, is under cultivation. 

Having made a single march only to this place, 
and having reached it by 12 o'clock a.m., I was 
enabled to make myself at home in this little town, 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 129 



and being lodged in a very handsome, quite architec- 
tural Daram-Sala adjoining a temple, with moreover 
the luxury of a good light in the evening, I was 
quite comfortable. This town is also the appanage of 
one of the scions of the Udipur royal family, and 
like one of the small German capitals, the town 
evidently profits by the presence of a prince. The 
prince himself has a handsome-looking castle ; an 
architectural well, which, with a garden attached, 
made my bearers exceedingly comfortable ; and the 
well-built temple and ISarai, where I was — all displayed 
an aesthetic feeling, as well as attention to the wants 
and pleasures of the public. The town is tolerably 
l ar g e — sa id to have a thousand houses, of which one 
hundred are Brahmans, one hundred Bunneas, eighty 
Bhilahis or aborigines. On walking out in the 
evening I saw a group of fine boys playing at ball, 
with an energy I never saw in the south, and on 
calling them up I found they consisted of four 
Eajputs, three Mussalmans, two Dhohis (washing- 
cast), one Mali (gardener), and some other I know 
not who. It is not only the Eajputs in this 
country who are handsome fellows, for some of the 
Bigarries, who carry loads, and who are either Bhils 
or Bhilahis (as they call them), were perfect models 
of beauty. 



130 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



CHAPTEE XXIII. 



Udipur — Visit to Rana. — Rajput Architecture. — Day's Hog-Shooting. 
— Old Capital of Rajputs — Chitore — Idleness of Rajputs. 

Dec. 9th. — Udipur, twenty-four miles. 

10th. — I arrived at this place yesterday, at 7 p.m., 
and was led by my bearers to the house of the resi- 
dent — a very handsome edifice, with columns of better 
chunam* than one ever sees in Bombay, and the walls 
decorated with panels and foliage in relief; and I 
apprehend the workmen must have been brought 
from Calcutta. But the house had evidently not 
been inhabited for years, and there was not an article 
of furniture in it. Being without light and without a 
table or a chair for a couple of hours, having pre- 
ceded my palanquin, which served in case of need as 
a seat, though I was in an elegantly built English 
house, I found myself much more uncomfortable 
than at my previous lodgings al fresco in the native 
villages, where all the accommodation of the village 
was always available at a moment. However, my 
palkie came up soon, and I got into it with great 
satisfaction, as a sort of refuge for the destitute. 

* This is the name of a very fine mortar of India, made of sea- 
shells, and which, in its hest qualities, as at Madras, takes a polish as 
fine as white marble, from which it is undistinguishable. 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 131 



This morning I have had visits from the pardlian, as 
the premier is called here (a bunnea of the oswal 
cast), from two or three wealthy merchants, and 
from a Rajput baron, or thakur. The latter- — a very 
handsome young man, and elegantly dressed in black 
velvet embroidered with gold, but with no coxcombry 
about him — is a great sportsman; so I detailed to 
him my elephant sport of Ceylon, which delighted 
him greatly ; whilst with the merchants I descanted 
on the opium speculations and Ram Lall ; but I found 
the former topic the easier of the two, though both 
difficult, from my very indifferent Hindustani. Indeed, 
I never had so many occasions for the native language 
as on this trip ; for on nearly all other occasions I 
have been accompanied by some one who understands 
English ; but now, to express the commonest want, I 
have to stammer out the little I know of Moors. I 
find this the most trying when I go to the chiefs' 
durbars, and am asked questions on matters which 
had not come within the range of my own personal 
wants. It was arranged that at 3 p.m. I should go 
to the durbar, and see the rana, as the chief of the 
Rajputs is called, and I went accordingly on elephants 
which he sent for me. The residency is about half- 
a-mile from the town and palace, which latter really 
is a palace, both in exterior and interior. I had 
expected to be disappointed, after the florid ac- 
counts Colonel Tod* had given of this building, of 

* Col. Tod passed many years in Rajputanaas Resident at Udipur,and 
devoted his life to the collection of the traditions, legends, genealogies, 
and literature connected with the romantic Rajput race among whom 



132 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



the picturesqueness of the city, and of the beautiful 
lake ; but I think they fully came up to his descrip- 
tion ; and, from the size, I think the whole forms a 
coup-d'ceil superior to any combination of architecture 
and landscape I have ever seen. I have not looked 
into Heber for many years, but I conclude he gives a 
detailed account of the whole. 

The rajah received me with very good bearing ; his 
durbar was but slightly attended by his own people ; 
indeed, I scarcely saw any gentry there, but my 
visitors of the morning. There was, however, a pro- 
priety and calm dignity about it which contrasted 
most favourably with the rude receptions of the 
Gaikwar. Ranaji, as they call the Raja, seems about 
thirty-six ; a little dull in manner, but good-looking, 
and exceedingly well dressed, as all these Rajputs are. 
He is a good shot, and prides himself much on being 
able to hit, with a rifle ball, any one of four different 
coloured ivory balls, which a man suspends from a 
string on cross sticks, and twists round at about 
twelve yards' distance. The subject had been men- 
tioned to me in the morning, and the topic was again 
reverted to, and the machine introduced. He also 
showed me some new Purdays he had just received ; 
and I described my little French rifle that I had got 
from the Due de Coislin. The presents were then 
introduced on trays, and appeared costly; and they 
pressed me so much to take them, that I feared 

be was placed. He published the result of bis inquiries in two very 
interesting quarto volumes, in which some beautiful illustrations of 
Rajput scenery and architecture will be found. 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



133 



I should be obliged to do so, which would have been 
a great bore to me, as I should have had to make 
an equal return, and then I should have had a quan- 
tity of things I did not want. Luckily, however, 
they did not send them after me. I mention these 
matters, because I stand in a different position to 
Company's officers, who are under strict orders (very 
properly) not to receive presents, whereas the main 
motive for hesitation with me is my inability to make 
a return of equal value. 

On going and returning, I perambulated nearly 
the whole city, which is full of interesting bits, as 
the artists call it, and of better architecture, with 
greater breadth of street, than any town I have seen 
in India. The favourite type is a one-storied house, 
the ground-floor with much deadness of wall ; but on 
the first story, highly decorated oriels, at which the 
householder and his friends group themselves of an 
evening, with open verandahs, and other decoration, 
all in stone, — when a house with higher pretension is 
met with. To-morrow I am to go to the palace on 
the lake, the Jug Munda, which is said to far exceed, 
in costly interior decoration, the one I have seen 
to-day. 

Dec. 11th. — I spent all the morning shooting wild 
hog in the rana's preserves, close to the city wall, with 
my young friend, Rowji Bakkat Singh Baidla, who, I 
find, is one of the sixteen feudal barons of Rajputana, 
and is the second of the whole in Tod's list. I was 
fortunate enough to knock over my first boar with the 
new French rifle, and, on giving the Rajput a shot, he 



134 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OE INDIA. 



did the same at 150 yards. We found plenty of hog, 
and excellent broken ground, but it is poor or no 
sport ; and when they brought me up, at the close of 
the day, to discharge my gun with a couple of shots, 
I found one of the keepers feeding the hog with 
pulse, and they came around him to the number of 
twenty or thirty. I was desired to fire, but I would 
as soon have shot into a pigsty. All I got by the day 
was a good walk, and some excellent points of view of 
the beautiful lake and city. I ought also to mention 
the most unsportsman-like appearance of my friend, 
arrayed in the black velvet tunic of yesterday, with a 
sword, a red cashmere shawl flaunting from his shoul- 
ders, and bare feet with slippers. I must do him the 
justice to say, however, that he walked well over a 
rough jungly country, and shot well. 

We afterwards got on our horses, and rode to the 
lake-side, where we embarked in a boat, and rowed to 
the two island palaces, one built by Kurrum, son of 
the Emperor Jehanghir, when he was a refugee at 
Udipur; the other, by his friend, the Kan a. They 
must have been beautiful when in their glory ; but 
they are now dirty and out of repair, though a few 
thousand rupees would completely reinstate them. 
Tod undoubtedly exaggerates their appearance. I 
found that my little rifle had made such an impression 
at court, that I begged the young Rajput to present it 
in my name to the raja; and I was glad to do this, 
as he has furnished me with bearers, camels, &c, to 
Ajmir. 

12th. — Chandwar, thirty-six miles. Left Udipur 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 135 



at 7 a.m., and reached this place at 5 p.m., on a sani 
camel, having sent my palkie and tonjon forward, and 
making this detour to see the celebrated Chitore. 
Ibrahim on another sani, and two others the rana has 
sent with us for baggage, with half-a-dozen horsemen, 
complete our party. Camel-riding is undoubtedly 
the way to get on quick in this country ; and I am 
much inclined to dispense with my palkie as soon as 
possible. It is rather painful to have human bearers 
when one desires to get on fast ; for although it is 
their trade, it is very hard work if they have to go 
double marches, and one sees them suffering under it. 

The country I have come through to the eastward 
of north of Udipur is a singular contrast to the 
rugged, broken ground on approaching the capital 
from the south ; for, after emerging from the very re- 
markable amphitheatre (it is not a valley) surrounded 
by a double circumvallation of hills in which Udi- 
pur is situated, the route lies over a vast plain 
without any break in it, covered for the most part 
with the thorny bir, and the aonla (a bush mimosa 
with pretty acacia-like flower), though very fertile in 
parts, and near the villages showing much irrigation, 
with cotton quite ripe, sugar-cane and wheat just 
peeping above the surface. It is a country, however, 
for flocks and herds, and I see them of all kinds — 
from camels, who pick out their favourite labal 
[mimosa Arahica), to sheep, who are here of quite a 
different breed to what we see in the Deccan, having 
white fleeces and very lank proportions. I met but 
few travellers or traffic, and camels seem the universal 



136 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



mode of carriage, though I met one merchant from 
Jaipur, who was travelling in a light cart. To- 
morrow I have forty-two miles to Cbitore, and am 
to start early, but my camel is so springy that I 
do not feel the least fatigued in riding him. 

Dec. 14th. — Chitore, forty-two miles. Arrived 
here last night at 6 p.m., starting at 4 a.m., and 
breakfasting — en route — under a fine banyan tree. I 
came in rather tired, but the Jemadar suggesting 
that I should be champooed, the barber was sent for, 
and in half an hour he had squeezed out all the stiff- 
ness from my limbs, and a very comfortable lodging 
at the foot of the fort — being a sort of quarter 
guard station — received me. Chitore stands on a 
hill of remarkable tabular formation, exceedingly like 
the trap of the Deccan, but the rock is chiefly gneiss, 
streaked apparently with porphyry. The hill on which 
the fort is, appears to be about six miles long, and 
the fort is said to be thirty miles in circumference. A 
town of two or three thousand houses is at the foot of 
the hill, and as an example of the thin (comparatively) 
scattering of Rajputs in the country called Rajputana, 
I may mention that in this, the ancient capital of the 
country, the only resident Rajputs were those in the 
service of the Durbar, sipahis, keepers of chokies, 
&c, the inhabitants being chiefly bunneas, bankers, 
Brahmans, &c. This morning I have been up the 
hill and over the old site of the fort and capital, — at 
least, over a portion of it. The column of victory 
(depicted by Tod) is very elaborate, being sculptured 
in high relief, both inside and out, but the effect is by 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



no means commensurate with the labour and expense, 
the latter of which must have been enormous, as, in- 
dependent of the carving, the stone was all brought 
from the Aravalli hills, at least sixty miles off. A 
number of ruined palaces without much interest; of 
temples, ditto; and a sweet secluded nook where a 
spring bursts out of the rock, completed the lions of 
the morning. I did not fall in with the Jain columns 
of which Tod gives a print ; and, on the whole, I 
think the readers of Tod will not have their impres- 
sions heightened by visiting Chitore, though there is 
something gained by ocular inspection of a celebrated 
place which no reading or drawing can supply. I 
inquired for the locale, where the tremendous self- 
sacrifice of Rajput females took place,— eight or nine 
thousand, I think, is the number recorded,— who 
immolated themselves when the capital was taken by 
storm, but I either could not understand my guides, 
or they would not show it me. 

I am just starting for my night's maMm, 
Amirghur. • 
Dec. 14th.— Amirghur, twenty-two miles. 
15th.— Bhilwharra, ten miles. At Amirghur, last 
night, on arriving I found a traveller's bungalow as 
I had now got on to the high-road, between Nus- 
serabad and Nimatch, and I found it occupied by a 
sahib, Captain Mackintosh, who has Jawud, and one 
or two small Eajput districts under his charge. I 
forthwith proceeded to introduce myself, and found 
him just sitting down to dinner, and gladly accepted 
his invitation to join him. He was on his annual tour 



138 



A BIHD's-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



through his districts, attended by a large camp of 
about twelve hundred souls, as he carries all his office 
about with him. He also had come a long march, 
and appeared to be as pleased as I was to have a 
companion for the evening. His dinner, like what 
mine would have been, consisted of but a single dish 
plus cheese ; but then wine, beer, and bread were all 
novelties to me, and after fifteen days in the jungle it 
is pleasant to have a tete-a-tete Chre'tienne. He 
gave me much information, and confirmed an 
opinion I had formed, that these good-looking 
Rajputs, whom I had seen strutting about the 
villages, were a race without any value for the present 
time, as they are too proud to work— will take no 
military service with us— think it a degradation even 
to cultivate (though I have seen some Eajputs at the 
plough), and by virtue of their apparent or real supe- 
riority, squeeze a livelihood out of the more indus- 
trious races by whom they are surrounded. Captain 
Mackintosh says, that to have three or four Rajputs 
in a village is most fatal to its prosperity, as they 
curb the energies of the remainder. He also says that 
in a district of twelve villages, where he would be 
able to obtain R. 20,000 of revenue, a Rajput 
chief or durbar would only get R. 12, 000, and the 
reason which he ascribes for this is, that under our 
raj the cultivator can rely fully upon our faith, and 
therefore will lay out capital in further cultivation 
with confidence ; if he does so under a native power, 
he is liable to have additional exactions made upon 
him which swallow up all his produce. Certainly, 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER, INDIA. 



throughout the three days' march from Udipur, I 
have come through a country of excellent soil, with 
water close to the surface, but producing for the most 
part nothing but wild plants, babal, bir, aonla, and 
dak trees. Nor do I see any symptoms of cultivation 
extending itself. There is such a charm, however, in 
good looks, good manners, and gentility, that I do 
not wonder that the Rajputs fascinate so many passers- 
bv, who see nothing to attract them in the hard- 
working cultivator, or the thrifty Bunnea, and yet it 
is to these two classes, to agriculture and commerce, 
that the English must look for the improvement and 
progress of the country, for under our raj the craft 
of soldiership has disappeared, and I think happily. 



140 



A BIRD* S -EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



Nussirabad.— Hospitality of Capt. Maitland.— Ajmir.— Col. Lowe.— 
Jaipur. — Native Government. 

15th. — Buneyra, ten miles, to sleep. Another 
very picturesque castle and lake, the seat of a rajah, 
tributary to Udipur, and described by Heber. 

16th. — Bunaya, thirty-nine miles. A long march 
from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m., all on camel-back. 

17th. — Nussirabad, twenty miles. I got into this 
cantonment at "1 a.m., and made for the travellers' 
bungalow. On entering the compound,* I observed 
symptoms of a gentleman's residence, and soon dis- 
covered that it was no public bungalow, but a private 
house. The butler advanced, however, with his mas- 
ter's compliments, that he would be delighted to 
receive me, but was then in his bath. I accordingly 
went in, dressed, bathed, breakfasted with a very 
agreeable, pretty hostess and her husband, the brigade 
major of the station, and had been some hours in the 
house before I learnt their names to be Captain and 
Mrs. Maitland. 

18th. — Ajmir, thirteen miles. I was so com- 



* Corruption from the Portuguese word camponez, and applied by 
the English in India to signify the grounds or enclosure in which a 
house stands. 



TUIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 141 



fortable yesterday, and was so pleased with my quar- 
ters, after seventeen days in the jungles, that I 
postponed my departure here till this morning, when 
I came over, still on camels, in two hours,— good 
going enough, as we had to cross a range of hills. I 
arrived about 9, and found Colonel Lowe, who was 
expecting me, just returning from shooting; and 
with his well-appointed English costume, his ruddy 
glow of health, and clear grey eye, and good bag of 
snipe behind him, it required but little imagination 
to think that my worthy and much-esteemed host 
was receiving me at his own place in Scotland, and 
not in the centre of tropical India. At Ajmir, I 
found my overland letters of the 1st Dec. mail; the 
second one, which is now in, having gone unfortu- 
nately to Jaipur. I also had to make arrangements 
for my passage onwards, and find I can get to Jai- 
pur (eighty miles) in one day, and thence to Agra 
in three : so I start the day after to-morrow, to give 
my servant a start on a camel. Nothing to see in 
Ajmir ; have been through the city this afternoon, 
where the lion is the Jain temple, figured by Tod, 
which was converted by Akbar into a mosque. The 
sowkars (bankers) have some handsome large houses 
in the town, which seems active and thriving, but not 
large. 

19th. — Have sent on my palanquin and Ibrahim 
with the camels, and I follow to-morrow, 4 a.m., to 
Dudu, when I get into a native carriage, and go on 
forty miles more to Jaipur. This has been effected 
by Colonel Lowe having sent a swift camel yesterday 



142 a bird's-eye VIEW OF INDIA. 



to Jaipur, who started at 11 a.m., and was to reach 
this morning at 8 a.m. (not bad work, eighty miles in 
twenty-one hours), and would thus post horses for 
me all the way. 

20th.— Dudu (what a name !), forty-two miles. 
Have had a most delightful ride here in four hours ; 
delicious climate and excellent riding-ground. Kis- 
hanghur, nineteen miles, the seat of a Rajput rajah, a 
very pretty town ; indeed, I have seen no such pic- 
turesque towns in India as these Rajput cities; and 
this one, with its castle on the hill, battlements, and 
well-built private houses, ranks well among them. 

Just had a visit from the thakur of the village. 
He is uncle of the Maharajah of Jeypore, and came 
in some state with his (native) carriage-and-four, ele- 
phants, &c, — very inferior-looking in appearance, 
both he and his son, to the Rajputs I have seen in 
Mewar. 

I found the Jaipur raja's carriage, with four horses, 
here, all ready for me, and I am only waiting for my 
cup of tea to start onwards. 

7 p.m., Jaipur. Reached this place in excellent 
time, and got over my journey of eighty-four miles 
with more ease and satisfaction than any day's travel 
in India that I can recollect. I have never traversed 
eighty miles of more waste ground than I have been 
over to-day; and it seems irreclaimable, from the 
nature of the soil — deep sand. Mewar is in great 
part waste ; but the soil is good, and the surface is 
covered with luxuriant babal, with water close to the 
surface; and all that is required is population and 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 143 



capital. But on the sands of this country scarcely a 
bush is to be seen; and the overflowing of the Nile 
and Rothschild's purse would scarcely produce a 
decent farm. 

21st. — Have been over the famed city of Jaipur, 
and have been grievously disappointed, both with the 
city and with the palace, which Heber, if I recollect 
right, extols so highly. The town, from having been 
built at once and on a regular plan, presents, from 
its regularity, its wide streets at right angles to each 
other, and its places, or squares, at the junction,— 
an effect which is no doubt bold and imposing ; but 
the uniformity of the architecture, and the palpable 
imposition, which the eye. cannot possibly blink, gives 
the whole affair the effect of a house built with cards. 
All the houses have apparently an upper story ; some, 
such as the palace, three or four, with ornamented win- 
dows, &c, but their facade, in truth, is nothing but a 
wall pierced for sham windows, and at all the angles 
and breaks in the street the humbug presents itself. 
The facade of the palace, which goes up high into the 
air, might be shaved off from above the first story, 
without the least injury to the building ; and as to 
the marble palaces which one hears of, I scarcely saw a 
square foot of marble in any portion of the erections, 
the surface being merely chunam, though, I admit, 
of a very good quality. 

22nd. — Had a delightful gallop this morning, on 
a very fresh Catty war horse, to Amber, the old capital 
of this Raj, and was extremely pleased with its fine 
bold palace on the Ml, with the town in the gorges 



144 A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



of the valley, and the varied views in the distance. 
It is floridly described, as usual, by Heber ; but not 
so much overdone as he usually paints his scenes. I 
have fallen in with his work at this place, and am 
able to compare his pictures with the original ; but I 
am too busy with sight-seeing and overland letters to 
be able to devote much time to reading. 

Having come now about 500 miles through native 
states, I am able to form some opinion as to their 
apparent prosperity ; and I must say I am somewhat 
struck to see so few symptoms of improvement, of 
increased cultivation, or of any other index of pro- 
gress ; and yet they have had thirty years of uninter- 
rupted peace, and complete protection from without, 
— a state of things unknown to them for centuries. 
Strange enough, too, without any exception, all the 
English administrators whom I have met with or 
heard of in these provinces concur in thinking that 
native Rajput administration is essentially bad. I 
say it is strange ; for I have observed generally that 
Englishmen engaged in the administration of native 
states become great partisans of native government, 
in preference to the English ; and this very country 
has had most warm advocates in Colonel Tod and 
Colonel Sutherland, who each had the whole charge 
of the country. 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



145 



CHAPTER XXV. 

Effects of Native Government in Raj putana.— Fine Tomb at Futteh- 
pur. — Agra. — The Taj. 

23rd .— Basawar eighty-four miles, viz., to Maum- 
pore fifty-nine and a half, in the rajah's carriage with 
four horses, over a road of deep sand and through a 
sterile, uncultivated country, and to Basawar, twenty- 
four and a half miles in palkie, the first time I have 
entered it, except for sleeping, on my journey; a 
long day, having started at 5, and not arriving till 
10 p.m. The carriages of which I speak are said to 
have been used from time immemorial, and the 
yoking is exactly that of classical times. They are 
extremely well suited to the country, and indeed a 
pair of horses would be wholly unable to drag a 
carriage through the heavy sands. 

To-morrow I leave Bajputana, and I must say the 
appearance of the country from first entering it to its 
furthest limits does not say much for native govern- 
ment. They have now had thirty years of uninter- 
rupted prosperity, with all the benefits of a protected 
frontier, and nothing to pay for it ; yet I see the 
greater part (nine-tenths) of the country uncultivated, 
though much of the soil, the plains of Mewar in 
particular, appears very fertile, and water is, in most 



146 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA.. 



parts, abundant and near the surface. I am aware a 
traveller going through the country so rapidly as I 
do can see nothing but the outer features of the 
landscape, the extent and kind of cultivation, the build 
and appearance of the races, and the manner and 
style of the villages; and therefore I do not dwell 
much on my conclusions; but I saw nowhere any 
symptoms of increased cultivation, or of capital laid 
out in agricultural improvements; and both on this 
trip, and in a former one through a native state, 
a murder was committed almost under my nose, and 
was apparently regarded as a common event. The 
province of Candesh, again, which is under the 
Company's Raj, is probably more fertile and still 
more uncultivated than any part of the country I 
have now come through: so, possibly, the general 
conclusion to be drawn is, that when once a country 
in India has been depopulated by predatory warfare 
and famine, as both these countries have been in the 
present century — the iron hand of Holkar having 
been laid on each — it requires an exceedingly long 
period to restore the country to its former prosperity. 

24th. — Futtehpur Sikra, forty miles. A long, 
wearisome march on camels, and, what was worse, 
supperless to bed. At Basawar, last night, I found 
that Ibrahim, my servant, had a fresh access of fever, 
having before had two or three attacks ; so I ordered 
him to come on slowly in my palanquin, and I 
determined to trust to the chance of the ruined city 
of Tuttehpur for a dinner. I started about 6, and 
reached the mokam at half-past 3, and took up my 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



147 



abode in the diiftur khana of Akbar's palace. The 
building containing the tomb of the celebrated saint, 
Akbar's contemporary, is hard by, and is remarkably 
fine; the gateway, a bold Saracenic arch, about 120 
feet high, built of red sand-stone, intermixed with 
a light-coloured stone, and bands of white marble, 
makes altogether a most pleasurable impression, 
The saint's shrine, a small temple in the enceinte, 
but not in the middle, of a noble cpiadrangle, has 
its external walls filled in with perforated marble- 
work, quite filigree in execution, and similar to what 
I had seen at Arungzebe's tomb in Aurungabad, 
and at the Jain temples on Mount Abu. The cice- 
rone who did the honours to me described this as one 
of the three wonders of Hinclostan ; the Taj at 
Agra, and the Jama Masjid at Delhi, being the two 
others. 

Having no servant with me, I despatched a mes- 
senger into the village to get me some ekawpatis (a 
native cake made of wheat) and some milk, as I had 
my tea with me. But the cicerone of the temple,, 
one Bisharat Ali, a venerable old man, who proclaims 
himself descendant of the saint, forestalled my mes- 
senger, and brought me some tea and chaupdtis of 
his own, and salaamed down to the ground when 
I recorded the fact in a certificate, which he added to 
his very large store of autographs (containing, among 
others, Bishop Heber's, Lords Gough and Hardinge^s, 
and my friend, Prince A. SoltikofFs), and I added 
besides a few rupees. 

25th to 29th. — Agra, twenty-four miles. Got in 

L 2 



148 



A BIEJ)'s-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



here this morning to Mr. Jackson's, the collector, to 
breakfast, he having sent out a buggy to meet me 
half-way. 

My journey for the last sixty miles has been 
through almost uninterrupted cultivation, the first 
forty miles being through the Bhurtpore Rajah's 
territory, the remainder through the British. Several 
of the villages are inhabited by Mussalman culti- 
vators, several by Brahmans, the remainder, I sup- 
pose, by Jats. It is pleasing to see such a breadth 
of country under cultivation, especially after the 
wastes of Rajputana, but they do not appear to be 
such good farmers as in Gujarat : the fields are foul 
with weeds; and at the wells, instead of the simple 
contrivance of two lines to the leathern bucket, by 
which one man, with one pair of bullocks, keeps up a 
continual supply, these wells have always two men, 
and usually three, when two pairs of bullocks are 
employed. 

Have lionised most of the sights at Agra; the 
two celebrated tombs, Nur Mahal's and Akbar's, the 
Pearl Mosque (Moti Masjid) in the fort, the gates of 
Somnath, and the tomb of Nur Mahal's father over 
the Jamna. The Taj, or Nur Mahal's tomb, is one 
of the few celebrated pieces of architecture that seems 
to disappoint no one. I have seen no view that does 
anything like justice to it, especially to the garden 
front, where the blending of the avenue of dark 
cypresses with the white marble of the edifice has 
something indescribably beautiful. Akbar's tomb is 
not nearly so happily imagined, and is much inferior 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



149 



in architectural pretension to the tomb at Futtehpur, 
but it is imposing from its size, and from the large 
architectural garden about it, and it likewise im- 
presses one with an interest from containing the 
ashes of so great, wise, and good a sovereign as 
Akbar, having, so far as my historical knowledge 
extends, no superior, and I think no equal. 

There is something about the monuments at Agra 
which is very gratifying— I mean the decorous 
manner in which they are kept, They are as neat 
and clean as St. Peter's, at Rome, and cleaner-looking 
than St. Paul's; and the gardens about them are 
in full bearing with oranges and roses, which quite 
cover the expense of keeping the premises in repair 
and good order. This arrangement, I believe, has 
been organised by my host Mr. Jackson, who is 
the collector here, and a very active man who has 
evidently been improving the city of Agra exceed- 
ingly — knocking down houses, straightening streets, 
and ventilating and draining the whole town very 
effectually. 

28th, " Paid another visit to the Tc4j this morning, 
and spent two or three hours there alone very 
agreeably. I think it is the most beautiful building 
in the world; at least, to me it affords more 
pleasurable sensations and prettier points of view 
than anything I have before seen. The arabesque 
ornaments of inlaid marbles are so like the pietra 
dura work of Florence, and have so much of a 
European character about them, that it is difficult to 
believe that an Italian artist had not something to do 



150 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



with the erection - yet Tavernier, who witnessed the 
commencement and the termination of the work, 
which extended over twenty years, says nothing on 
this subject ; and yet the employment of European 
artists would probably have called forth a remark, 
and the apology he makes for admiring the building 
would seem to show negatively that no European 
was employed on it. Rajah Lai Sing, the Sikh 
" Proscrit" with his nephew, called upon us this 
morning. This is the first Sikh I have seen. He is, 
I believe, of Brahman family, but has risen from a 
situation of much obscurity, having originally been 
employed in the Tolsey Khana, or wardrobe of 
Eunjit Singh. He appears intelligent and good- 
tempered, and was beautifully dressed in green silk, 
much embroidered with gold. 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



151 



CHAPTEE XXYI. 



Muttra.— -The Mathura of the Hindus.— The Holy Bmdi£band.— 

Delhi. 

Dec. 29th. — Muttra, thirty-two miles. Bode and 
drove along an excellent-made road to this place 
with my host Mr. Jackson, and took up our 
quarters at some very agreeable people's, Mr. and 
Mrs. Alexander. 

30th.— Muttra is the best native town I have 
ever seen, and with its neighbour, Bindraband, is 
one of the most sacred in India in the eyes of pious 
Hindus. There are two palaces (this is the right 
word) belonging to native merchants; one to the 
great opium-speculator Luckmichand— whose case 
lately decided by our court in Bombay, and again by the 
Privy Council in England, had pre-occupied the atten- 
tion of the whole commercial world in India.* The 
palace of this merchant prince would do great credit 
to any capital in Europe— and it resembles more 
the doge's palace in Venice than any other building 
I know. The neighbouring rajahs and considerable 
people of the Hindus have each their establishment 
at this place, consisting, for the most part, of a Kuj 3 

* See an account of these remarkable cases, which throw so much 
light on the commercial classes of India, in the Oriental Cases published 
by the author. 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



or Darrams&la, and temple; and amongst these, some 
are of great beauty, such as the Rajah's of 
Bhurtpore. The streets are extremely clean, and are 
kept well watered by the inhabitants at their own 
expense ; but there is a profusion of monkeys and 
dogs about the town, both of which, but especially 
the former, must be exceedingly annoying to the 
shopkeepers, with their exposed wares and eatables 
for sale. 

Bindraband, the seat of some of Vishnu's cele- 
brated exploits as Crishna, is still more holy than 
Muttra, from which it is distant six miles. We rode 
there before breakfast this morning, and explored its 
beauties. One of the most remarkable temples is a 
new erection, not finished, dedicated to Vishnu, by a 
brother of the opium sett's Luckmichand, he himself 
(the elder brother) being a Jain or Shrawak. This 
temple, it is said, will cost, first and last, seventy 
laks (700,000/.), and is built apparently upon the 
model of those at Conjiveram. Like those, also, the 
pyramidal steeples are not of stone, but chunam, 
adorned with unsightly figures of Vishnu. The 
elder brother, who is a bit of a philosopher, and who, 
as belonging to the Jain creed, rejects idols, rather 
laughs at his brother for the profuse expenditure he 
has incurred "in building so expensive a house for 
God, whom nobody ever saw ! " 

But the chief ornaments of Bindraband are the 
Kujes of wealthy Hindus, and the Gh&ts which 
belong to them on the side of the river, and which 
extend continuously for about a mile on the western 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



153 



bank of the Jamna. They also admit of an easy 
approach to the stream, for bathers, and many of 
them have considerable architectural pretensions. 
The town is dirty, with narrow, winding streets; 
and the population, though large, does not appear 
attractive. Indeed, I have seen nowhere in this 
part of India such an intelligent-looking, handsome 
population as I have seen in the holy towns of the 
Deccan, such as Wai and Nasik, especially the well- 
dressed Brahmani girls, with their purples and crim- 
sons and graceful saris, for which the dark, dirty- 
looking petticoat of this part of India is but a 
sorry exchange. Passed a very agreeable evening 
at this house last night, which is the best monte of 
any I have seen since I left Bombay ; and as both 
husband and wife are very musical, the time slipped 
away pleasantly. 

Jan. 1— Delhi, ninety miles. Arrived here this 
morning at 7 a.m., having left Muttra yesterday at 
11, the first thirty-five miles in the great opium 
sett's* carriage, which Mr. Jackson procured for me, 
and the remainder of the way in a palanquin dak, 
which the said sett had laid for me. Found a room 
ready for me at Sir Theophilus Metcalfe's, brother to 
the late Sir Charles ; but the whole party a-bed, as 
they had danced in the new year. The grounds sur- 
rounding Sir Thomas's house are in size and appear- 
ance quite a park; and the whole thing, with its 
exceedingly large house, is evidently the hobby of his 

* " Sett " is the honorific term applied to all great merchants, from 
the Sanscrit Sethi. 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



life, and he is said to have laid out three laks of 
rupees (30,000/.) upon it. But after ah, why not 
this hobby as well as another ? He has had this ap- 
pointment thirty-four years, and has his children about 
him ; is a great man in this country, and would be 
nothing, "not even an academician," at home; so I 
think there is some philosophy in his apparent 
determination to live and die here. 

He mentioned a curious fact at breakfast. A 
respectable banian woman had lately been sent for by 
her family from a distant station, and a male relation 
was sent to escort her home. She travelled, as is 
usual with Hindu women, with her jewels; and, 
on approaching the Delhi districts, the man took 
her on one side of the road, tied her up, despoiled 
her of her ornaments, and left her with the intention, 
as he told her, of getting a large stone to knock 
her on the head. He did not return, however; and 
in the morning, she having attracted some passers-by 
with her cries, they made search for the man, and at 
a short distance they found him lying dead, with a 
large stone by his head; and the medical man who 
examined the corpse had no doubt that he had been 
bitten by a snake, who was probably coiled up under 
the stone. 

The principal lions of Delhi are the Jama 
Masjid, the King's palace, and the Kutab Minar, 
which is fourteen miles off, in one of the old capitals 
which this district has been selected for, it is not 
very easy to see why ; for it presents neither good soil, 
good water, nor strength of situation. The valley 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



of the Jamna lias none of the advantages which one 
might suppose to belong to the valley of a tropical 
river descending from a lofty range of mountains, 
and which its neighbour the Ganges possesses. The 
Jamna rarely overflows, though it occasionally rises 
sixty feet in its bed, which is accordingly very deep. 
The soil in the neighbourhood is impregnated with 
salt, the water brackish, and rock appears above the 
surface very plentifully j and yet so far back as his- 
tory can penetrate Delhi, Indraprestha, and Shahje- 
hanabad, one or other of them has always been the 
capital of an empire. 

Delhi is very remarkable as an Indian city from 
its abundance of Mahomedans, the proportion to 
Hindus being about one to two ; in no other place 
that I have been in is it more than one to ten. The 
principal mosque, the Jama Masjid, has its steps 
covered with idlers, with traffickers, and vendors 
of doves, just as one might suppose was the case 
with the Temple at Jerusalem ; and the Masjid, from 
its large proportions, is very imposing. 

I spent a day at the Kutab, Sir Theophilus taking 
me over, about twelve miles in his small chariot, 
drawn by four camels, who did the journey very well 
in a little more than an hour and a half. Camel 
carriages seem very well adapted for these heavy 
sands ; and at Nussirabad, where I first saw them, 
all the carriages were jogging along with their pair 
of camels, and a rider on each, very cosily. The 
Kutab, like most of the Mussalman buildings I have 
seen, is much more imposing in reality than the 



A BIHD's-EYE VIEW OP INDIA. 



drawings of it one sees would give one reason to 
suppose. There is a controversy whether it is of 
Hindu or Mahomedan architecture; but the mode 
in which the Arabic inscriptions blend with the style 
of building, and its general imposing character (so 
unlike the scrimped over-elaborated work of the 
Hindus) does not leave a doubt on my mind that the 
Mussalmans were its erectors ; and I see no reason 
to doubt that the account given by Mr. Elphinstone 
in his history is the correct one. Sir Theophilus, 
however, who has lived by its side for the last thirty- 
four years, is equally clear that it is Hindu. 

The palace at Delhi is remarkable from its extent, 
from the immense number of inhabitants, shops, &c, 
which it contains (who are all under the exclusive 
jurisdiction, even to life and death, of the king of 
Delhi), and from one being able to realise, in its 
outer court, the daily durbars and inspection of troops, 
horses, camels, elephants, &c, which the emperors 
were accustomed to hold, as also the more select 
durbar which they held in the afternoon, in the inner 
quadrangle, both of which Bernier describes graphi- 
cally. Besides these points of interest, there is no 
architectural beauty to commend, except the outer 
wall, which is very imperial, and shines out, in the 
city of Delhi with a considerable enceinte around it, 
right royally. 

Although the king has the power of death, he does 
not exercise it without our intervention; and some 
few years ago, when one closely connected with the 
royal family murdered his wife, the king requested 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA, 



157 



Sir Theophilus to try the case, which he did ; and the 
facts being proved clearly against the prisoner, when 
Sir Theophilus asked the king what the punishment 
should be, he replied, " My laws are like yours : 
blood for blood/' and the royal scion was hung. 



158 



A BIRD's-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

Umbala.— Snowy Range.— Excellent Roads of Upper Provinces.— 
Change Route to Nepal and the Eastward.— Saharanpur.— Native 
Witnesses. — Meerut. 

m Jan - 5 th.— Umbala, 133 miles. Arrived here last 
night at midnight, having left Delhi in palanquin dak 
at 7 a.m. on the 3rd. I ran to Karnal, seventy-six 
miles, where I bathed and stopped two hours; and 
then came on here. Only one meal in two days, 
which is short commons all the world over ! 

At Karnal I got the first view of the Himalayan, 
and all the day the sight of their snowy tops delighted 
me. The whole road from Delhi an uninteresting 
plain as usual, but with none of the cultivation which 
is so remarkable for fifty miles on both sides of Agra, 
where, though the soil is by no means good, and the 
water generally brackish, there is an uninterrupted 
breadth of cultivation, and a thicker population than 
I have seen anywhere in India ; said to be thicker 
than Belgium. The roads through the Upper Pro- 
vinces are certainly very striking ; on the main lines 
quite as good as— and very like— the old turnpikes of 
England; on many of the cross roads, better than 
cross roads in England. They undoubtedly have an 
advantage here, in the uninterrupted level plains, 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



159 



intersected by no ravines as with us in the Deccan, 
and which, in fact, enable a buggy to traverse the 
country in its whole extent, and in any direction, 
without any made road at all. When one talks of 
the want of intercommunication in India, it ought 
to be observed that, for eight months in the year, no 
country in the world affords such natural resources — 
such few obstructions for travel in all directions ; and 
it is this facility for moving about which probably 
led to India's early civilisation; there is also an 
excellent material for roads in the kaiikar, or lime 
concretions, which they find so plentifully a few feet 
below the surface. Still, these advantages are not so 
preponderating over those of the Bombay presidency, 
as to account for the difference. Agra, for example, 
839 miles distant from Calcutta, 848 miles from 
Bombay, is reached by ordinary post in five days from 
the former, while it takes eight clays for the latter. 
So this place, Umbala, which is about 1100 miles 
distant from both places, can be reached in ten days 
from Calcutta, by palanquin dak, while it has taken 
me exactly forty, pushing on with all the speed pos- 
sible, and having great advantages afforded me, at 
various parts of my route, from Bombay. The con- 
clusion I draw is, that the hand of government has 
been more beneficially employed in the one presidency 
than in the other. 

Jan. 10th. — Umbala is said to be the finest mili- 
tarv station in India. Although it has only been 
made about six years, the trees which have been 
planted form quite a distinguishing feature ; and I 



160 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



certainly have seen no station in this presidency to 

compare to it; and its extent of parade-ground 

twenty-five square miles— gives it a character that 
few can claim. The lower range of the Himalayah is 
only twenty miles off; and at this time the CAur, and 
many of the heights, are covered with snow, while on 
fine days the distant summits, Jamnotra, 21,000 feet 
high, and others, stand out with their sparkling tops 
glittering in the setting sun. 

The Erskines want me to go with them to Nepal, 
to which John Erskine has been just appointed Resi- 
dent, and return to Bombay via Calcutta, instead of 
by the Indus ; and there is much to be said for the 
idea, as I should see a more interesting country; in 
fact, should see Lucknow and the distant Katmandu — 
should have all the advantages of company instead of 
solitude. 

Jan. 11th. — Heavy rain for the last three days- 
heavier than they have here during the monsoon. 
Have determined on returning by the Indus. 

Jan. 13.— Vacillating people ought not to keep 
journals, for they are like an uneasy conscience. 

Having determined on the 11th to return by the 
Indus, I determined on the 12th to make Lucknow, 
Katmandu, and Benares my return route, preferring 
the agremens of those places with the company of 
the Erskines to Simlah three feet deep in snow — 
Lahore with not a soul there I know — eight days' 
camel-ride to Multan, and the eighteen days' solitary 
dropping down the river Indus to Karachi : and as 
I am travelling for pleasure, and certainly shall not 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



J61 



have another opportunity for seeing such a wild and 
little visited country as Nepal, — the most striking 
spot, according to Prince TTaldernar of Prussia, in 
the whole of India, — I yield to the temptation 
willingly. 

Saw a little discrowned royalty yesterday in the 
person of the ex-Maha-Kajah of Lahore, Dhulip 
Singh, who is on his way to his place of honourable 
relegation, Puttehpur, on the Ganges. He is a fine 
boy of eleven years old, and is accompanied by his 
relative, a younger boy, the son of Shere Singh. 
They were calling on the general here, Sir Dudley 
Hill, and the boys seemed amused by being led 
through, and introduced to, all the intricacies of a 
well -mounted English establishment. 

It seems lucky that I have given up my Simla 
trip, for we see it from the station enveloped in one 
mass of snow, and we have letters from there this 
morning which state that the weather is most 
gloomy, and that the inhabitants are perfect prisoners 
in their houses. 

16th. — Saharanpur, sixty miles. Left Umbala 
yesterday, at 4 p.m., in four palanquins ; and we 
reached this place at 12 a.m. — road bad from the late 
rains, and our bearers at the last relay were not 
forthcoming. Erskine — who was a-head of us — had 
gone on, and when I reached the Choki,* I found 

* The post station, at which relays of palanquin-bearers are placed. 
A relay of bearers consists of nine or ten, including the masdlchi, or 
torch-bearer, and the stage is usually eight miles, which they accom- 
plish at about three and a half miles an hour. 



162 a bird's-eye VIEW OF INDIA. 



M. and her ayah in tribulation, the few bearers 
present refusing to take them on. Luckily Colonel 
Benson was there, just arrived at his tents, on his 
march Calcuttawards ; so he sent us in to Saharanpur 
on his elephant. This is a very pretty station, and 
the large botanical garden, the government stud, 
containing 750 horses, and the snowy range nearer 
than at Simla, afforded us plenty of amusement for 
all day. 

Jan. 18th. — Meerut, seventy-two miles. Left 
Saharanpur yesterday at 8, dined last night at 
Mozuffernuggur, and got in here this morning by 
7 a.m. The country through which we came (the 
upper Doab) an uninterrupted breadth of cultivation, 
at least all I saw in the daytime was so, — principally 
wheat, which is not irrigated, and much sugar-cane ; 
scarcely any villages on the road, however, notwith- 
standing all this cultivation. 

A strange sight at Saharanpur yesterday morning, 
a number of persons, many of them very well dressed 
— tied together by a rope — under charge of a Naik 
and ten men ; and on inquiry who they were, we 
found they were witnesses ! going up to the native 
Cutcherry. 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



163 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 
— ♦— 

Cawnpur. — Improving State of Country. — Lucknow. — Elephant- 
Fight. — Visit to King. 

Jan. 23. — Cawnpur, 259 miles. We left Meerut 
on the morning of the 19th, ran for twenty-four 
hours to Alighur, a large cantonment, where we 
breakfasted and lunched, and left again at 4 p.m. • — 
going out the first fifteen miles in a buggy, we then 
ran on to this place, only stopping once a day for a 
couple of hours, and half an hour in the mornings to 
give Mrs. Erskine a cup of tea. When we arrived 
at the last Choki, fifteen miles from Cawnpur, whtere 
we had ordered a carriage to meet us, but which was 
not there, we found no bearers ; so at twelve o' clock 
at night, we were set down in our palkies under a 
tree, and the bearers refused to go any further. We 
were obliged to make the best of it ; — sent off a man 
to Cawnpur for a carriage and other bearers, and 
then bribed our bearers — after much difficulty — to 
carry us on a mile and a half further to the travellers 5 
bungalow, where we remained till morning. 

I feel very glad to have seen this part of the 
country, which I am now traversing ; the road all the 
way from Meerut is not only as good as, but posi- 
tively better than, any turnpike-road in England 
during the palmiest days of turnpikes, and, from the 

M 2 



164 A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 

dead level of the country, a single horse or a pair 
of bullocks can trot along with a heavy load behind 
most easily. The consequence of this fine road is, that 
the traffic upon it is very great, presenting a livelier 
scene than anything I had seen in India ; and also 
evidently introducing new modes of conveyance, for 
I see the natives adopting small single horse carriages 
instead of the bullock cart, which is the ultimatum 
of speed they had previously arrived at. Another 
remarkable indication of the value of the road is 
shown in the quantity of cotton coming along it, 
going downwards, although the Ganges is not above 
five or six miles to the left, and the Jamna also on 
the right at some thirty or forty. 

The country, as before, is one uninterrupted field 
of wheat, barley, and a pulse called thull, with patches 
of sugar-cane, some opium, and a little indigo, 
but a much better soil than the land on the other 
side the J amna, where they are obliged to irrigate 
their wheat ; and in the whole distance from Saha- 
ranpur, I have not seen half a mile of jungle. At 
Alighur, we lunched with Mr. Tyler, the collector, 
where we found a brother collector and the commis- 
sioner of revenue enjoying their (prolonged) Christmas. 
Tyler mentioned to me that when he first came into 
the district— about twenty years ago— the cultivation 
was not one-third what it is now, and he had lately 
been on a rising piece of ground near the Ganges (a 
remarkable locality in these plains) from which, when 
he first arrived, he had been able to see nothing but 
jungle tenanted by deer, tigers, and hog, but which 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 165 



now has wholly given place to the plough, and new- 
villages are springing up every day. The consequence 
.is, that with a good season like the last food is very 
cheap, wheat is now selling fifty seers or 100 lbs. the 
rupee. At Umbala it was forty seers, and at this 
place it is thirty-five seers. At Agra, again, it was a 
maund (80 lbs.) for the rupee (2s.). 

Jan. 25th. —On calculating my time and my 
movements with Erskine this morning, I find that I 
am running myself to the very margin, without a 
day to spare, "for any moving accident by flood or 
field," if I am to embark by the steamer at Calcutta on 
the 8th of March ; and he strongly recommends my 
giving myself a month more, by which means I shall 
be able to give Katmandu a full fortnight, to make 
three or four marches probably into the interior to- 
wards Thibet, and then on my return to see Benares, 
Gayah, Tirhut, and the garden of India, leisurely. 
By the present arrangements I shall only be able to 
stay three days in the valley of Nepal — after a six 
days' climb to get there — and shall then have to 
descend the mountains at the same slow pace, 
with six hundred miles — day and night — palanquin 
dak to Calcutta, at the close of it. 

They have a regiment of Sikhs here, and I saw 
some recruits at drill last night, remarkably well- 
grown, fine young men, and very active, much 
more so they tell me than the Hindustanies, who 
malign and fear the Sikhs, while these on the other 
hand have a profound contempt for Jack Sepoy. 
Indeed, it seems from all one hears of the late 



166 



A BIKD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



campaigns, that if our sepoys had not been well 
chequered with Europeans, the Sikhs would have made 
mince-meat of the former. 

27th. — Lucknow, forty-seven miles. Arrived here 
yesterday, trotting over most comfortably in six 
hours in one of the king's carriages, which Colonel 
Sleeman had procured for me, over a good macadam- 
ised road, which has been lately made at an expense 
of two laks (£20,000). Colonel Sleeman is unfor- 
tunately absent, marching through the districts, but 
he has placed the residency at my disposal, and has 
urged me most warmly to use it as my own house, 
and to ask to it any of the society established here, 
whom I wish to see. The residency is, I believe, the 
best in India, as there is an excellent three-storied 
dwelling-house, on the type of one of the best 
Calcutta-houses, and the public rooms for entertaining 
are in a separate building. The doctor, assistant- 
resident, and engineer officer, all called here last 
night, volunteering their services to do the honours 
of the place, and laying down the program of the 
lionising operations. Amongst these it seems the 
king is to give us a public breakfast, and I, on the 
other hand, am to give him a return one at the 
residency. We are also to have a combat des 
animaux, which Erskine and I have especially 
bespoken, and the little doctor promises to get up the 
best nach which India can now produce. Having 
heard much of the fertility of Oude, I was greatly 
disappointed at the appearance of the country 
between this and Cawnpur : great tracts of jungle, 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



167 



sand, and uncultivated land, give it a very different 
appearance from the country I had just left, but I 
hear that this tract is one of the worst portions of 
the country. 

Half-way we saw one of the native collectors 
encamped with a large retinue, amongst which were 
some six-pounders, which are frequently resorted to 
here, in order to collect the revenue. The other day 
some smart firing on an occasion of this kind was 
heard at Cawnpur, and some of the cannon-balls 
fell in the cantonment. The king, it is said, is very 
dissolute, and lives wholly with low people— fiddlers, 
and such like, of whom he frequently makes his chief 
officers and collectors. Still the people we met on the 
road were a fine-looking, well-fed race, and, to the eye, 
no appearance of suffering or mis- government pre- 
sented itself. The inhabitants I suspect are of a 
vigorous race, with whom mis-government has its 
limits, and who know how to protect themselves when 
it is carried too far. Hence, the employment of six- 
pounders above alluded to. 

I have determined on giving another month to my 
tour, so I shall be able to see well the valley of 
Katmandu, as well as Benares and Tirhut. 

Jan. 28th— Lucknow is a very picturesque city, 
covering an immense extent of ground, with masjids 
at every turn, with garden-houses in the interior, and 
even cultivators' gardens, and from the number of 
natives riding about on elephants, and with large 
corteges of horses, giving one a good idea of what 
Delhi or Agra must have been in the olden time. 



168 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OP INDIA 



The architecture is all very degenerate, and, from the 
absence of stone in the neighbourhood, chunam is 
nearly always the external coating over brick of every 
building one sees. The consequence is an unsub- 
stantial look about the edifices which is tin- 
pleasing. Last night we visited the tomb of the 
late Padsha, which is in a state of preparation for a 
fete to be given at the next new moon, and a collec- 
tion of candelabra and glass chandebers of all sizes 
and of the most fantastic forms and colours is gathered 
together for the ceremony; the whole, when illumi- 
nated, will, no doubt, have a very fine effect, though 
much in Vauxhallish taste. This mornijigwe visited 
the palace of the late king, which is full of pictures, 
European furniture, bijouterie, &c.; some good— the 
greater part rubbish, but all expensive. The throne 
of gold, with rubies and diamonds inlaid, would be 
very magnificent if it were kept in good order, but 
the whole is in such a dirty state that the effect is 
mesquin enough. The present king, following the 
usual native example, objects to living in the palace 
of his predecessor, and in consequence every thing is 
allowed to go to rack and ruin. 

Jan. 29th.— To-day we had what the natives call a 
grand tumdsha at the king's palace, the king having 
given us and all the Europeans of the station a 
public breakfast. He did not come forward himself, 
but sent the heir-apparent— a youth of eleven years 
old— to represent him. We sat down about one 
hundred, Europeans and nobles of the court mixed 
together; and as they were exceedingly well-dressed, 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



169 



—as his troops, amounting to about 3000 men, were 
well appointed, — the regiment of cavalry indeed 
being quite as good-looking as any of ours, — and as 
state elephants, elephant-carriages, and all kinds of 
sowwari were present in great abundance, the show 
was, on the whole, interesting. A program of the 
whole was sent me the night before, by which I was 
informed that the minister was to come for me at 
nine o'clock ; that, on arriving at the palace, the heir- 
apparent was to receive me, and that I was to lead 
him by his right hand to the breakfast-table, &c. &c. 
After breakfast was over we adjourned to see some 
wild-beast fights, and saw a very animated combat 
between two elephants, in which one knocked down 
the other, and they both rolled over down a steep 
bank into the river Gumti. We feared at first that 
the mahout or rider was killed, but they managed 
to pull him away from under the gigantic and 
infuriated beast. We had then fights of black buck, 
fights of rams, and some sword-play; and then 
adjourned to another court, where some buffaloes 
(a male and female) held the field against tigers and a 
bear, and the former carried off all the honours of the 
day. The tigers, three in number, and noble-looking 
animals, did not exhibit the least courage, but slank 
away and turned tail very despicably from the 
buffaloes, who charged them manfully. This was all 
verv tame. 

After the combats were over, Captain Bird (the 
assistant resident), Erskine, and myself had an in- 
terview with the king. We found him in the new 



170 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



palace he lias built, dressed in his royal robes, and 
covered with precious stones, the greater number of 
which were huge uncut emeralds. He was very 
affable, showed us all his crowns, nine in number 
(which was said to be a great mark of condescension), 
and numbers of his jewels ; and having asked whether 
I should like to see a review of his troops, appeared 
delighted when I expressed a wish to do so. This 
man has only come to the throne about three years. 
He is about thirty-six years of age, with a sensual 
but very good-natured expression, and is not bad- 
looking. He is said to be a thorough sensualist, 
passes his time wholly with fiddlers and dancing- 
girls, and avoids the company both of Europeans and 
of the respectable noblemen of his court. On the 
whole, however, he made a more favourable impres- 
sion on me than all I had previously heard of him 
led me to expect. 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



171 



CHAPTEK XXIX. 

Lucknow.— Establishment founded by Gen. Martin.— State of King- 
dom of Oude. 

Feb, 1st.— Yesterday we gave a return fete to the 
king at the residency ; and he, as usual, was repre- 
sented by the little prince. They came on elephants, 
and with the different omlahs (noblemen) of the 
court made a goodly cortege. The banqueting- 
rooms at the residency are very spacious, more so 
than those at the palace • so the ceremonial had fair 
play. After breakfast, which the Mussulman guests 
partook of with appetite, we adjourned to a balcony, 
from which we witnessed some wrestlers, sword-players, 
antelope and ram fighting, &c. ; and then the ceremony 
of taking leave was gone through, and the liars of silver 
thread put round our necks, as at the palace. These 
necklaces are worth, the best of them, eight rupees 
(or sixteen shillings) each, and the smaller ones three 
each ; so Mrs. Erskine's ayah was much delighted at 
receiving the four I had been presented with. Yes- 
terday I visited the schools at the Martiniere, one of 
the establishments founded under the will of the late 
General Martin, the Frenchman who, in the Com- 
pany's service, amassed much wealth, and who died 
in 1800. The establishment is located in a most 
eccentric palace, built by the General for his own 



17 3 A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OP INDIA. 

residence and apparently on his' own designs, at an 
expense of 160,000/. He appears to have imported 
a number of artificers, most likely Italians ; for the 
rooms are decorated profnsely with arabesques, bas- 
reliefs, and other ornaments in the Italian style, 
many of them of great beauty; and the external 
architecture is crowned profusely with casts of figures 
some after the antique, some in modern fashion ; and 
the modeller appears to have formed a school in the 
city, which lasts to this day, and its works may 
be seen m the different palaces of the king and 
noblemen General Martin's will, by which he made 
the East India Company his heir, on the condition of 
carrying out various charitable requests, was subject 
to much litigation both in Calcutta and En-land • 
but finally, under a scheme of the Supreme Court at 
Calcutta, the school or college here was erected 
(mter aha), and is maintained at an expense of about 
3600/. per annum, besides large sums from time to 
time for repairs. The engineer, Captain Sim, told 
me that he was now about to lay out 4000/. in the 
repairs of the building and roads; for there is a kind 
of park about the house, with a fine carriage-drive 
through it. 

The college contains now about 120 boys, prin- 
cipally English and half-casts, though there is a 
sprinkling of Mussalmans and Hindus. The greater 
number are boarded and lodged free of expense, and 
there are even six Mussalman boarders ; but the 
Mussalman Omlahs generally are unwilling to send 
their sons to an establishment where there is such an 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



173 



indiscriminate mixture of ranks ; and I do not wonder 
at their reluctance, especially as the distance of the 
college from their own homes in the city (from three 
to five miles) is so great. There is a principal, main- 
tained at 720/. per annum, who is a wrangler from 
Cambridge ; a head-master, at 480/. \ and two other 
Europeans, at 180/. and 144/. There are also mas- 
ters for instruction in Persian and Arabic. But 
English appears to be the basis of all instruction; 
and certainly the advocates of English education 
could not point to this establishment as a good illus- 
tration of their views. The English boys all belong 
to the humbler classes ; and their countenances and 
manner show that no intellectual development belongs 
to their stock. They appear healthy, and would form 
admirable materials for indoctrinating with the useful 
arts, as carpenters, bricklayers, turners, dyers ; but it 
is quite clear they never can become scholars ; and, 
although the greater number of them are of pure 
English blood, one can perceive, by their defective 
pronunciation of native words, that they are more 
Indians than English * and I hear from the masters 
that they speak Hindustani among one another, in the 
playground, from preference. The principal, Mr. 
Clint, as well as a very sensible man, Mr. Crank, the 
head-master, fully agreed with me, that it would be 
more desirable to train up these youths as mechanics 
than under the present system ; but he said nothing 
would cause more offence in the school than the pro- 
pagation of such a notion; and I understand the 
usual answer made, when any inquiry is addressed to 



174 A BIKERS -EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



a boy as to what vocation he looks forward .to, is, 
Literature. 

This kingdom of Oude, as our government has 
allowed it to be called— though, from its size, mode of 
erection, and necessary subordination to the para- 
mount power of India, it would have been more 
properly designated as a soubah or province— appears 
to be in a most critical and interesting position. It 
has usually been estimated that its annual revenue 
ought to amount to two millions sterling ; but, from 
its bad management, improvident grants, and widely 
diffused disorganisation, the actual revenue collected 
last year was under 750,000^. ; at the same time, it 
seems that the expenditure is a million and a half per 
annum ; and, what is worse, instead of being laid out 
on essentials— on the payment of troops, police, roads, 
and the necessary expenses of government,— it is fooled 
away by the king in the most reckless and improvi- 
dent manner. His tastes lead him exclusively to the 
society of fiddlers, amongst whom he spends all his 
time, composing songs, &c, and lavishing on the 
most unworthy individuals not only large sums of 
money (I heard of 30,000£ to one fiddler), but 
actually conferring upon them the highest appoint- 
ments of the state, to the disgust, of course, of all his 
respectable omlahs. The disorganisation of the king- 
dom is such, that Colonel Sleeman, the resident, has 
prevailed on the governor-general to allow him to 
make a tour through the provinces, which he has 
been engaged on for the last three months, and 
during which he has been encouraging applications 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 175 

• O ! 

and the receipt of petitions from all quarters. ^ This, 
no doubt, is an extraordinary interference with the 
native government, and not warranted by any treaty, 
—indeed, is contrary to them all, and therefore can 
only be justified by the strongest of all reasons— 
saluspopdi. In the mean time Colonel Sleeman has 
seen so much to shock him in the present aspect of 
things, that he has sent in word to stop all expendi- 
ture of government, even on the most essential works 
over which he, as resident, has any control, such as 
the repair of the roads and bridges of the city, &c. ; 
and the European officers have assured me that life 
and property are safe in no quarter of the kingdom ; 
that the troops are not paid, but are battened on the 
districts, where they cater for themselves, and where 
they are bought off, through their commanding officer, 
by one rich zemindar after another offering a douceur 
of 5000£., or so, to move on to a neighbouring 
district. Whilst Colonel Sleeman is thus employing 
himself, the Court are aghast at the storm which they 
suspect is brewing, and are, of course, in great con- 
sternation ; and, in order to meet the evils which are 
thus being palpably exposed, are making great re- 
trenchments in every quarter, often of the most 
ill-advised nature. 

It will be very curious to watch what the denoue- 
ment of this state of affairs will be; for, to a 
bystander, like myself, it is difficult to understand 
how British interests are affected by this internal 
misrule, or how, therefore, any interference on our 
part can be warranted. And I understand the 



176 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



responsibility lies entirely with Colonel Sleeman, for 
the governor-general has only given a bare assent to 
his progress through the country. 

I observe that Forster, on his visit to Lucknow, in 
1783, describes the then revenue at two millions 
sterling, but states that they had greatly decreased 
since the death of the late vizier Sujah-ab-Dowlah. 

Feb. 5th.— An interesting letter this morning from 
Colonel Sleeman, describing the country he is travel- 
ling through, and wishing me to come out to join 
him. He says: "A few years of tolerable govern- 
ment would make this the finest country in India; 
for there is no part of India with so many advantages 
from nature. I have seen no soil finer. The whole 
plain of which it is composed is capable of tillage. 
It is everywhere intersected by rivers flowing from 
the snowy range of the Himalaya, which keep the 
moisture near the surface, yet nowhere cut up the 
banks into ravines. It is studded with the finest 
groves and single trees, as much as the lover of the 
picturesque could desire. It has the boldest and 
most industrious peasantry in India, and a landed 
aristocracy too strong for the weak and wretched 
government. It is, for the most part, well cultivated; 
yet, with all this, one feels, in travelling over it, as if 
one were moving among a people suffering under 
incurable physical disease, from the atrocious crimes 
every day perpetrated with impunity, and the num- 
bers of suffering and innocent people who approach 
one in the hope of redress, and are sent away in 
despair." 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



177 



Feb. 7th. — -This morning I visited the hospital, 
the poor-house, the thug jail, and the king's library. 
The different residents at this Court have, from time 
to time, been able to get sums of money dedicated to 
useful objects ; and the consequence is, the existence 
of a number of establishments all doing good in their 
way, but which are, many of them, not to be found 
either in native capitals, or in towns under the 
Company's raj. 

Thus, there is a poor-house, where the infirm and 
the needy may bask away in the sun, and be well 
lodged and clothed. There is a pension-fund of 
about R.1000 a month, which the doctor distributes 
to widows and other needy people ; and there is a 
very respectable library, from which books may be 
had out on giving a written order for them. The 
king also maintains a racket-court and billiard-table 
for the use of the European residents. 

I was agreeably disappointed with the hospital, as 
I did not expect much ; but I found it a well-venti- 
lated and well-conducted establishment, maintained 
at an expense of 45/. a month, with a daily average 
of 120 inmates, and dispensing relief to about 7000 
individuals yearly. The food of the in-patients, 
clothing, medicine, and salaries of the assistant- 
surgeon and apothecary are all borne on the sum of 
45/. ; but the residency-doctor gets 60/. a month 
besides for superintending this establishment and the 
jail. The assistant-surgeon is a Mahometan — one of 
the eleves of the medical college at Calcutta — and 
gets a salary of 15/. a month, besides, as he informed 

N 



178 



A BIHD's-EYE VIEW OP INDIA. 



me, occasional fees of 50/. to 100Z. from his private 
practice— a practice which Dr. Bell, the residency- 
surgeon — unlike his predecessors — very liberally 
fosters. 

At the jail a number of prisoners exclaimed most 
vociferously at their lot, as they declared they had 
been seized in their villages, and had been detained 
eight, ten, and twelve years without trial; and Dr. 
Bell assures me their complaints were well-founded. 
They were all in irons, but appeared healthy and 
happy, justifying Warren Hastings's remark, that an 
Indian in jail, with plenty to eat and nothing to do, 
enjoys a very happy life. 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 179 



CHAPTER XXX. 



Journal through Oude to Nepal.— Indigo Planters.— The Ancient 
Ayodhia or Oudh. — Gorackpur. — Opium Cultivation. 

Feb. 10th.— Deriabad, forty-four miles. Mrs. 
Erskine having been pronounced fit to travel, we left 
Lucknow yesterday at eleven ; had a most jolting drive 
through the sand, in Colonel Sleeman's carriage, for 
seven miles, in part of which the leaders were so restive 
(having discovered the difference from a made road), 
that the postillions were forced to unharness them, 
and thus, by the steady wheelers and some human 
pushing, we managed to get through the deep ground. 
We then got into our palkies, and, with one or two 
stops on the road, under trees, for something to eat 
for poor M., we got over the journey wonderfully 
well, though we did not get in till one in the 
morning. 

11th.— Eaizabad, forty miles. Arrived here this 
morning at 5 a.m., having left Deriabad at 4 p.m. 
As this place has got some lions, being the former 
capital of Oude, having the tombs of Sujah-a-Dowlah 
and his Begum, and having, within four miles, the re- 
mains of the old Hindu capital of Ayodhia, over which 
Earn was king ; and as we have an elephant and a 
buggy at our disposal here, sent to us by the king, I 
have determined to make a halt for one day, 

N 2 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OP INDIA. 



Taking a ride this morning on our elephant, to see 
the town, I fell in with a young English officer, in 
the service of the King of Oude. He is stationed 
here on thug duty, with three hundred foot and fifty 
horse ; and he says that his time is fully employed, and 
that he has had lots of fighting, having lost about ten 
men at different times during the five years he has 
been employed. He gives the same account as others of 
the extreme turbulence of the country, and of the 
great quantity of murders prevalent; and he says, 
the place we were at yesterday— Deriabad— is one of 
the most lawless in the king's dominions. The Ze- 
mindars, it seems, settle all disputes among one 
another by arms, having, in fact, no other tribunal to 
refer to. The consequence is, that the commonest 
Zemindar keeps a hundred matchlocks in pay, and 
some of the Talukdars five and six hundred. A great 
many of the cultivators about here (he says about 
one-half) are Eajputs, and they are to be seen at 
plough girt with sword and shield, which they never 
quit, and which, indeed, are said to be sine quibus non. 
The men in his service were extremely fine-looking 
fellows, and they are regularly paid, though they 
only get ten shillings a month ; but they prefer this 
smaller pay, naturally enough, in their own country, 
where they have not so far to go to their homes 
when on furlough, to the seventeen shillings of the 
Company's service. The horsemen get two pounds, 
but he says there is usually a clipping of one rupee 
to a rupee and a half. The district about here is a 
great recruiting one for the Company; and my young 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



181 



friend thinks, shrewdly enough, that if an officer 
were sent on the service, instead of a serjeant or 
havildar, who selects his own friends and kin only, we 
should succeed in procuring much finer men. 

It is worth travelling in India to appreciate the 
comforts of a palanquin. As often remarked, it is 
a house, but a house as it were upon wheels. Its 
internal arrangements are certainly far more come- 
at-able than those of a carriage, and, for a long 
journey, there is infinitely less fatigue in it. One 
carries with one a larder, a cellar, a bed and clothes. 
In one drawer I have all my writing materials ; in 
another, my sponges, brushes, &c. ; in a third, my 
knives and forks ; while books and newspapers make 
a library of the whole interior. 

Feb. 12th.— Paid a visit to the ancient Awud, or 
Ayodhia, this morning. It is about four miles from 
Faizabad, on the banks of the Gogra, which is here a 
finer river than the Jamna at Agra, or the Gange sat 
Cawnpur. As the birthplace of Rama, and his 
capital moreover, it is a favourite spot of pilgrimage 
with the Hindus from all parts of India; and ghats 
are built along the banks of the river, and bathings 
take place there, as at Bindrabund, Muttra, and 
Benares. One day in every week is a great bathing 
day ; besides which there are two festivals in the year, 
when there are vast congregations of the faithful. 
The city must have been exceedingly large: even 
now the space covered with buildings is larger, I 
think, than modern Lucknow ; and, like Rome and 
some of the old cities of Italy, it stands on an 



182 A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



eminence, looking like a hill at a distance, but com- 
posed entirely of debris and materials of old 
buildings. At some time or other, the Mussalmans 
appear to have settled in it largely; and several 
musjids appear, one of which has been built over 
the birthplace of Rama; but they, in their turn, 
have given way, and Hinduism— the natural growth 
of India, like its pipal trees and milk-bushes— is 
flourishing vigorously among the ruins of the city. 
Rajah Man-Sing, the great zemindar, whose elephant 
and buggy we have been using, was stopping at this 
place for his ablutions, and he waited on me— a 
young Brahman of thirty, emaciated and sickly, evi- 
dently an opium-eater. His father was one of the 
great chackledars, or revenue collectors, of the 
kingdom, and by his grasping and extortions suc- 
ceeded in purchasing up about fifty zemindarries. 
The consequence is, that this young man gets about 
500,000£ a year of revenue for himself, besides 
rendering 20,000£ to the Government. He lives in 
a strong fort about fourteen miles off, and maintains 
they say, 5000 matclilock-men ; but, with all his 
revenue, is said to be deeply in debt. His father 
built here a handsome temple to Mahadeo, the stone 
of which was brought all the way from Mirzapur, as 
also a ghat on the river side, which now forms the 
favourite spot for the bathers. 

14th,— Gorackpur, eighty miles. Arrived here 
this morning, having spent yesterday with a Mr. 
Cooke, at Bastu, which is half-way. Mr. Cooke is 
what is called a grantee, having received a grant of 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 183 



land from Government, on a term of fifty years, at a 
low rent, on the condition of clearing it and bringing 
it into cultivation. This experiment has been tried 
several times, but does not appear generally to have 
succeeded j the grantees having usually sunk a good 
deal of money, having often engaged in unsuccessful 
speculations "of indigo and opium, and the result 
being that Government has resumed the land. Mr. 
Cooke is one of the three successful undertakers. He 
has a grant of 13,000 acres, for which he now pays 
a rent of 2500 rupees (250J.) to Government, which 
will be raised gradually to 5000 rupees, at which it 
is to be fixed during his term. He expects to realise 
three rupees per acre from the cultivator, which will 
leave him about 3000£. for his income. He found 
the country all jungle, and had great difficulty m 
tempting settlers to the spot ; commencing first by 
bribing loose characters and mauvais mjets, and gra- 
dually weeding them out. 

16th.— This station bears evident symptoms of its 
propinquity to the Terai, or woody belt at the foot of 
the Himalaya; for it is only within a few years that 
wild elephants used to walk into the cantonments ; 
and at the present moment a very savage one has 
taken possession of a village fourteen miles off, from 
which he has driven all the inhabitants, having already 
killed about ten to fifteen of them. The young 
sportsmen here are longing to be after him; but not 
being used to the sport, have been very inquisitive 
with me as to the vulnerable spots of the animal, 
which my experience in Ceylon had taught me. 



184 A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 

20th.— Sugowly. We left Gorackpur at 4 p.m. 
on the 17th, and reached Padrowna, only forty miles 
off, at 10 a.m. next day. We then breakfasted at the 
house of another grantee; but evidently not a suc- 
cessful one, like our friend Mr. Cooke at Bastu. 
Mr. Finch had a grant of 22,000 acres, and appears 
to have tried the cultivation and manufacture of 
sugar on a large scale; but, like the great majority 
of the grantees, the world has clearly not wagged 
well with him; and the large house he has built 
bears in its dismantled, unfurnished state, the com- 
plete appearance of a Castle Eack-rent. From Pa- 
drowna to this place sixty miles, which we reached 
yesterday at 10 a.m., twenty-two hours' dak. 

At this place we are living with a Captain Verner, 
a gentlemanlike Irishman, who commands a regiment 
of irregular cavalry. 

We are now in the country of opium cultivation, and 
the fields are beautiful with the white poppy in full blow. 
The district of the indigo-planters also commences here; 
and by the custom prevalent amongst them, one may' 
proceed in a buggy the whole way from here to Dina- 
pore or Patna, picking up relays of horses at each of 
their houses as one goes by, whether one knows them 
or not, and even whether the master of the house is 
at home or not. The sun of the poor indigo-planters, 
however, seems to have set, for they are all said to 
be insolvent, or nearly so; and their princely houses, 
some of them as large as Government House at Cal- 
cutta, I apprehend no longer witness the hospitality 
en prince which used formerly to distinguish them. 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER, INDIA. 



185 



The country we have come through is exceedingly 
well-cultivated, although so lately a jungle ; and from 
its moist climate, and propinquity to the Nepal hills, 
the climate is as moist as Bengal. The face of the 
country is not at all unlike Gujarat, and I never saw 
any part of India so distinguished by large mango- 
groves as this ; they extend, many of them, for miles, 
one for instance near Gorackpur, and the name of 
the planter is carefully handed down, for, though 
dedicated to the public, his family consider the 
property to be exclusively vested in themselves a 
claim apparently which is fully recognised by the 
community * We start to-night for the foot of the 
hills. 

* It is difficult for those who have not travelled in the tropics to 
appreciate the value of an Indian mango or tamarind grove. Inde- 
pendent of their precious fruit, these beautiful forest trees afford a 
shelter and a shade such as no art could supply, and they usually also 
harbour a well or a tank. 



186 A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OP INDIA. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 



Ascent to the Valley of Nepal. — Valley of Katmandu. — Revenues of 
Nepal. — Account of Terai. 

Feb. 26th. — Katmandu. We arrived here yester- 
day, and the difficulty of getting up was quite 
sufficient to prevent my making any note during the 
march. Our progress was thus : we left Sugowly 
at 7 p.m. on the 20th, reached Bissowly, thirty-two 
miles, about half-past nine next day, and then ran on 
dak, twelve miles more, through the dreaded Terai to 
the station Beach-a-Koh, at the foot of the hills 
where Erskine was to meet us. On arriving there at 
half-past 2 p.m., we found a note from him, stating 
that the rain above had been so heavy that he could 
not send the tents down, and that we were to push 
on to him at the next station. We therefore had to 
quit our palanquins, and start immediately on our 
march up the hills, — Mrs. E. in a janpan, or chair 
on upright poles, the ayah in a dandy or hammock, and 
I on a mule. Here the difficulties of our journey began, 
for the road was rough, very hot part of the way in the 
bed of a torrent, and half-way it began to rain violently, 
so when we reached Hetura at half-past 7 p.m., where 
E. was awaiting us, we all agreed that we had 
never had twenty-four hours' rougher travelling, 
though poor M. bore it wonderfully. We got our 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



187 



dinner about eight, in a substantial rest-house or 
Darramsala with an upper story j but as the lower 
story, an inner quadrangle, was completely filled with 
faquirs, who had been attending some festival in 
Nepal, the smoke from their fires at supper, 
and their singing during the night afterwards, 
made the place almost uninhabitable, and quite un- 
sleepable. 

Next morning, the 22nd, Mrs. E. fairly broke 
down, and seemed unable to continue the journey 5 but, 
as it was absolutely necessary either to get on or go 
back, we got under weigh again at twelve, and after 
two or three stoppages on the road, up another 
mountain-torrent, with most dense jungle on each 
side, and the influence of the Aul or malaria very 
perceptible onus all, for each suffered from its effects, 
we reached our station, Nya Paty or Bhim Pheed, at 
seven. Here we were to have dined and slept in the 
rest-house, but we found it like the last, so filled 
with faquirs, and the smoke so intolerable, that we 
willing ly took refuge in our tents, although it was 
raining and very damp. 

23rd.— We started at half-past eight, and our 
upward march, though steep, was through a less 
jungly and malarious country, so we got to our 
ground by two, passing over the Sissia Garaghat. 
On the 24th we made a village almost in the valley of 
Nepal, and the next morning came in the last eight 
miles, the principal part of the way on an elephant, 
and ensconced ourselves in the residency, a substan- 
tial English-built house in a small park, I should 



A BIRD's-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



have liked the excursion very much from its novelty, 
from its grand scenery, from the splendid views of 
Himalaya, which we obtained at the summit of each 
day's march (and as the summits in this part of the 
range reach greater heights than any mountains in 
the world, the grandeur of the prospect is easily con- 
ceivable) ; but, whether from the depressing influence 
of this climate, or the poison of these dense jungles, 
or still more the witnessing poor M.'s hardships 
and sufferings in making this journey during her pre- 
sent state of health, and with the prospect to her of 
being shut up in the Nepal valley, with no possibility 
of getting away — even if life and death were the 
stake for the next nine months— or all these com- 
bined, I never made a five days' journey under 
such a depression of spirits; and it was the more 
remarkable from the marked change to the very 
happy prosperous journey we had had from Lucknow, 
and which lasted up to the very moment of our 
entering the jungles. 

The Nepal valley is the valley of Udipur on a larger 
scale, except that it is much higher, being more than 
5000 feet above the sea, and that the soil here is 
evidently much better. Prom the quantity of rain that 
falls, rice appears to be the principal product, although 
there is an abundance of wheat now above the surface. 
One appears to be completely out of India here, as 
in fact is the case ; for although there are Hindus and 
Brahmans in the villages, and although the Khas or 
dominant race of the court are mongrel Hindus, i. e., 
Hindus by the father's side and aborigines by the 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



189 



mother's, still the bulk of the population is wholly of 
a different type,— whether Malay, Chinese, or Tartar, 
I can't well say. The principal inhabitants of the 
valley of "Nepal are Nawars, and although they have, 
I believe, adopted the Hindu theology, still their 
temples are similar in form to the Josh-houses 
of the Chinese or Burmans, and indeed there are 
two celebrated Budhist temples in the valley, which 
are principally supported by the Thibetan subjects 
of the Rajah, a portion of his raj extending into 
Thibet. 

By a paper of Mr. Hodgson's, I see that he 
estimated the revenues of the country for 1837, at 
R.43,43,373 (£434,337), and the expenses at 
R.37,77,000 (£377,700), the balance being paid 
into the treasury. I subjoin the items of expen- 
diture : Rupees. 

{Salaries of civil servants . . . 1,50,000 
Military (10 battalions)* . . . 9,00,000 
r Military at Palpa ...... 2,00,000 

fi Do. West of Palpa to Kumam . . . . 3,00,000 

L Do. East of Katmandu to Sikim .... 3,00,000 

Tosha Khana, including daily and weekly doles, and 
presents to natives and foreigners for food ; pre- 
sents for marriages ; the thread ceremony ; and 
parting gifts to envoys, &c. ; embassies . . 11,00,000 
Menials of the Palace 45,000 

Carried forward 27,95,000 

* 62,000 rupees per annum is deemed the cost of a battalion of 600 
strong. 

f These items include the civil or administrative charges, but are 
classed as military because the chief functionary is a soldier, and all 
things subordinated to military objects and aims. 



190 



A BIEj/s -EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



Rupees. 

Brought forward 27,95,000 

Police and government-office charges at Kumari Chok, 

the four Adalats, the Consi and Dufter Kaneh . 1,00,000 

Fees and perquisites of office-bearers . ... 1,00,000 

Administration of Terai 82,000 

Assignments and alienations of land . . . . 5,00,000 



Total . 37,77,000 

The following items appear in the enumera- 
tion of the revenue : — ■ 

Rupees. 

Magazine mines* 13,33] 

Western Copper Mines 44,003 

Rugam Mines 12,000 

Nagari Mines 58,028 

Bhansar of Bhol on account of Mintf . . 10,000 
Taxes on Justice, and fines in four Adalats of 

the capital 60,000 

Bounty paid by troops at Katmandu J on 

entertainment or renewal of yearly service. 50,000 
Sale of elephants in Terai . . . .8,000 

Mr. Hodgson, writing in 1837, adds the following 
note on the revenue : — 

" As usual elsewhere the chief source of revenue is 
a land-tax, which, where land is private property (as 
Nepal proper), is of gross, or J of net produce, 
but when land is not private property (the common 
case) is \ of gross produce. 



* Surplus from lands and mines assigned to arsenals. 

*h Mint profits on compulsory sale of all silver brought from Thibet, 
and an adulterate coinage therefrom. 

£ The regular troops, about 17,000 in number, are enrolled anew 
every year, and as the average pay is very good (estimated at six 
rupees), there is a great struggle to keep on the roll, and hence the 
bounty paid at the Panjani or annual enrolment. 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



Mr. Hodgson is of opinion (and he was resident 
here for twenty-five years) that the Gorkha rule is, on 
the whole, very mild and beneficial; and he contrasts 
the cheerful and independent bearing and counte- 
nances of the cultivators with those of the inhabitants 
of the plains between Patna and Calcutta, very 
much to the disadvantage of the latter and of our 
government. 

Dr. Campbell, who was attached to this residency, 
made a trip through the Terai, in 1839, of 250 miles, 
from Bissowly eastward to the Mechi, and I give an 
abstract of his remarks. 

The Nepal Terai is, in its extreme breadth, thirty 
miles, and, on an average, twenty-two miles broad. 
The country immediately under the hills is quite flat, 
swampy all the year, and the soil is stiff, tenacious 
clay. Everywhere the country is a swamp, and the 
water bad. The most unhealthy-looking men he ever 
saw were the Gorkha officers and civil and military 
functionaries of the rajah in those parts. Cultiva- 
tion, however, appeared to be extending itself, and 
elephants are fast disappearing to the west of the 
Kusi, and the morang is not able to supply the usual 
number (500) demanded by the durbar annually, 
and they are obtained by the Subahdars, from the 
Butan Duars, on the Eungpore and Assam fron- 
tiers. (Dr. C. must have been misinformed as to the 
number, for it appears above that R.8000 is the total 
value of the elephants thus obtained, and each 
elephant probably averages B.800.) Travelling, as 
he did, with a native employe of the rajah, the 



192 A BIRD's-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



inhabitants of the Terai flocked to him in great num- 
bers believing that a survey was in preparation, as 
the groundwork of a new assessment ; and as his route 
lay generally five miles equidistant from the British 
frontier and the Nepal forest, the inhabitants from 
the former also crowded around, each party retailing 
their grievances with open mouth. Dr. C/s re- 
marks on what he elicited from them on these occa- 
sions are curious. " Peeling assured (those under the 
Company) that I was in no way connected with the 
British Government, I had often, in reply to my ques- 
tions, the full benefit of their opinions on our officers 
and our rule. I could not see that, in the details of 
police and revenue arrangements, we had anything at 
all to boast of over the Gorkhas ; on the contrary, I 
believed that their police was more efficient and less 
extortionate than ours. All parties, however, agreed 
that accumulated wealth was safe, and a source of 
honour in our provinces, while in Nepal it was always 
liable to be rapaciously dealt with by extra-judicial 
power, and consequently was a source of uneasiness 
and dread to the holders. Many of the middle and 
all the upper class of people in the Terai, except the 
khas officers, have property in our provinces, and at 
least a moiety of their savings in money is carried 
across the border to our territory, in which their 
families generally reside." 

The disposition which Dr. C. here notices, to 
conceal true opinions when the native ryot is interro- 
gated by an officer of our government, seems univer- 
sal throughout India ; and a letter I received from 



TKIP THKOUGH UPPER INDIA. 



193 



Narayan; the interpreter of the Supreme Court, a day 
or two ago, mentions that, on a recent trip he made 
through the Poona collectorate, whilst making in- 
quiries amongst the cultivators as to the causes of 
their poverty, &c, the man he asked "immediately 
suspected there was something wrong, and com- 
menced telling me that the Company sircar was their 
ma bap (father and mother) ; that there was no 
zoolum under the present government; that there 
was greater security of property now than there was 
under any native government; that the Sahib Log 
(the English) were very impartial in the administra- 
tion of justice ; and encouraged trade by constructing 
roads and bridges— and so on. In order to divest 
him of fear, under whose influence he evidently was 
at the time, I assured him that I was not a servant of 
the Company, &c. fee. When I gave him several 
such encouragements, he proceeded to answer my 
question." 



104 



A BIRD'S -EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

Massacre of Nobles in Nepal. — Jung Bahadur. 

I have been reading this morning a variety of 
manuscript accounts of the great massacre of Nepalese 
noblemen (about thirty), which took place here in 
September, 1848, and by which, eventually, a revolu- 
tion in the government was effected. It is difficult, 
without local information, or the presence of any 
European to explain matters (and the only two 
Europeans here, Mr. Erskine and his assistant, are as 
much strangers to the country and as uninformed as 
myself), to obtain a clear view of what occurred, but 
the following appears to be a correct sketch as far as 
it goes. 

The late Maha Rajah appears to have been half- 
imbecile — certainly very weak ; and he made over the 
whole powers of government to his Maha Rani, or 
chief wife, and her authority was fully recognised by 
the state. She appears to have been a woman of 
dissolute habits, and as usual, having children of her 
own, was desirous to secure the succession for them, 
in supersession of the heir -apparent and his brother, 
the children of an elder and deceased rani, and who, 
by-the-by, was as ambitious and as troublesome in 
her day as the present queen. The party who 



TRIP TH110UGH UPPER INDIA. 



195 



opposed these plans of hers in the durbar she of 
course looked upon as her enemies; and it would 
seem that the commander-in-chief, General Guggun 
Singh was her prime favourite, and probably her 
paramour. I have not seen any account of the 
intrigues which the motives here indicated gave rise 
to, but they may easily be divined ■ and, in pursu- 
ance of them, it appears that, on the 14th of Sep- 
tember, 1846, the commander-in-chief was assassi- 
nated about ten at night, whilst at his devotions in 
Ms own house. Intelligence of this murder was 
immediately conveyed to the Maha Rani, who was at 
the Hanaimum Doka Palace, and who at once pro- 
ceeded to the spot, on foot, accompanied by her four 
female slaves, carrying with her gungajal (water of 
the Ganges), tulsi leaves, and gold. On viewing 
her lover's corpse, her agony is said to have been at 
first intense, but rallying from her grief, she placed 
the tulsi leaves and gold in the mouth of the 
deceased, and, forbidding his three widows to perform 
suttee, she condoled with the family, and ordered the 
funeral obsequies to be performed at the charge of 
the state, She then took the drawn sword from the 
hands of her kotha mucha (female sword-bearer), and 
with her hair dishevelled, and weeping aloud, pro- 
ceeded to the kot (hall of public business), and there 
ordered the bugle to sound for an immediate convo- 
cation of all the great civil and military functionaries 
of the state. She then seated herself on a chair of 
state, and declared that she would neither eat nor 
drink till the murderer of the general had been dis- 

o 2 



196 a biiidVeye VIEW OF INDIA. 



covered. General Jung Bahadur and his brothers, 
with three regiments, were among the first to arrive 
at the kot, where he had an interview with the Maha 
Rani, and urged her to the utmost activity to preserve 
the lives of herself, her sons, and adherents (meaning 
himself and party), who would probably fall like 
their common friend, Guggun Singh. This was about 
midnight. The Maha Rajah, about the same time, was 
brought to the kot by General Ubbima Singh ; and 
nearly all the sirdars and chief functionaries were also 
assembled, with the exception of the family of the 
choutreas* The rani then ordered Ubbima Singh to 
put one of the sirdars, Bir Kishor Pandi, in irons ; 
which being done, she accused him of the assassina- 
tion ; of which, however, he denied any knowledge. 
Whereupon, she gave her own naked sword to General 
Ubbima, and ordered him to put the pandi to death. 
The general, however, withdrew into another apart- 
ment, where the Maha Rajah was sitting with several 
public officers, and acquainted him with the orders 
which he had received, and requested to know what 
was to be done. The Maha Rajah replied, angrily, 
that, without inquiry and proof, it would be unjust 
to put to death such an old, able, and high-born 
servant of the state. Whereupon, Ubbima Singh, 
returning to the rani, reported this reply, and laying 
down the sword at her feet, refused to carry out her 
orders. 

She then sent for Jung Bahadur, and ordered 

* These are kinsmen of the Rajah, and the head of the family was 
the premier. 



TRIP THROUGH TJPPEE INDIA. 



197 



him to collect all the nobles in the great hall, and 
vowed that not one should depart till the murderer 
had been discovered \ and she again demanded that 
the choutreas, who appear to have been the heads of 
the anti-Rani party, should be sent for. In the 
mean time the Maha Rajah, thinking also that the 
presence of Futteh Yung Choutrea, who was his 
friend, was necessary, mounted his pony and went in 
search of him, at 2 a.m., and at the same time sent a 
special messenger to the. resident, Colonel Ottley, to 
inform him of what had passed, and to beg an imme- 
diate interview. Colonel Ottley, however, refused to 
give the interview at that hour of the night. The 
King being thus unable to obtain the assistance of 
the resident, proceeded to his own residence at the 
Hanaimum Palace. In the mean time the choutreas 
had arrived at the kot ; and the Maha Rani and 
Jung Bahadur persisted in their views to put Bik- 
shor Pandi to instant death, the Rani herself attempt- 
ing to stab him with her sword, whilst Futteh 
Choutrea, rbbima Jung, and others, urged previous 
inquiry. During this parley, the military partisans 
on either side loaded their arms, shots were fired by 
Jung Bahadur's party, and Futteh Choutrea, Kaji 
Pandi, and Ubbima Sing, were killed. J ung Baha- 
dur's regiment then continued their fire into the 
small room where the sirdars were assembled, the 
Maha Rani urging them on to kill and destroy all her 
enemies • and at the same moment she invested 
Jung Bahadur with the wizarat, or command, of the 
sixteen regiments at the capital. Most of the sirdar 



198 



A BIKd'S-EYE VIEW OP INDIA. 



chiefs at the kot were thus shot or cut down, though 
some are said to have been protected and saved by 
Jung Bahadur's brothers. 

The next day, on the Maha Bajah being informed 
of the previous night's massacre, he mounted his 
- horse and declared his intention of at once proceed- 
ing to Benares ; whilst the Maha Rani ordered Jung 
Bahadur to confiscate the estates of all the chiefs 
murdered on the previous evening, and to put the 
heir-apparent and his brother in confinement. Up 
to this time, Jung Bahadur appears to have been a 
willing instrument in the hands of the rani; and 
the Maha Rajah admits, in one of his public letters, 
that she gave Jung orders for the execution of those 
officers. Colonel Thoresby, the late resident, also 
observes, that as the Bajah had entrusted the full 
authoritv of the state to her hands, his sanction was 
unnecessary to any order, and the individual who 
sought for it on any occasion would only be imperil- 
ling his own head. Jung Bahadur, however, did not 
choose to carry out the views of the rani for the 
supersession of the heir-apparent ; and, although he 
kept him in confinement, he made various excuses 
for not complying with the rani's orders to put him 
and his brother to death. The rani thereupon 
looked out for another instrument for her ambition, 
and gave a grant of the wizarat to Bhir Bashnit, on 
condition that he should make away with Jung 
Bahadur and the heir-apparent. Bashnit, in conse- 
quence, marched his own regiment to the kot, and 
Jung Bahadur was sent for by the Maha Bani ; but 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



199 



Jung, having got wind of the intrigue, armed his 
relatives and retainers with double-barrelled guns, 
and proceeded on foot towards the durbar. On his 
road he met Bhir Bashnit, and acquainting him 
with his discovery of the intrigue, made a signal to 
one of his men, who shot Bashnit dead on the spot, 
Juno- Bahadur then proceeded to the palace of the 
Maha Rajah, whom he found with the heir-apparent, 
and recounted what had taken place. He then 
demanded full powers from the rajah to destroy all 
the enemies of the heir-apparent. The rajah at once 
gave the powers required, under his private 
seal; whereupon Jung Bahadur collected all the 
troops by bugle, acquainted them with what had 
passed; upon which all who had taken part in this 
latter plot of Bhir were sought for, and some four- 
teen or fifteen bashnits, and four or five petty 
military oificers, were put to death. 

Jung Bahadur having thus got into the ascendant 
lost no time in expelling the Maha Rani from the 
kingdom, and she took her departure for Benares; 
but" before she went she succeeded in persuading the 
irresolute rajah to accompany her, and they set out 
on their journey together. 

The rajah, however, shortly after his arrival at 
Benares, returned to the foot of the hills to Segowly, 
and there the relatives of the murdered party, and 
the survivors of the faction, choutreas, &c, began all 
the usual intrigues of Fuorusciti to restore them- 
selves, and to destroy Jung Bahadur. After attempts 
on the life of the latter, which his vigilance frustrated, 



200 



A BIED's-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



and many endeavours to sow jealousy between Jung 
Bahadur and the heir-apparent (now Regent), which 
also failed, as the Maha Rajah resisted all the 
prayers of the chiefs to return to his dominions, the 
principal civil and military functionaries met together 
to deliberate, and as if they had a volume of the 
History of England open before them, they solemnly 
declared that the Maha Rajah had abdicated his throne, 
and they thereupon resolved to invest the heir-appa- 
rent with the insignia of authority. Accordingly, on 
the same day he received the tika on his forehead and 
presents from the chiefs. It was resolved at the 
same time to make the late Maha Rajah a suitable 
allowance, and he was to live at his own choice, either 
in Nepal or in the Company's dominions. 

The country, since the the above period, appears to 
have been governed tranquilly by Jung Bahadur, as 
prime minister. The late Maha Rajah is living in 
Katmandu as a private individual, and the rani is 
living at Benares, having been deprived of some four 
or five laks in her possession by the British govern- 
ment at the instance of Nepal Raj. 

Jung Bahadur, with a large suite, is now on his 
way to England on a mission to the queen (suggested 
no doubt by himself), leaving the reins of govern- 
ment in the hands of one of his brothers, and taking 
with him twelve laks (120,000/.) to defray the 
expenses of a year's amusement.* 

* Jung Bahadur, by the most recent accounts, is now (1855) 
heading an expedition against the Chinese, who invaded Nepal towards 
the close of the last century, and signally defeated the Gorkhas. 



TEIP THE Oil GH UPPER INDIA. 



201 



CHAPTEE XXXIII. 

Suttee in Nepal.— Sequel of the Nepal Revolution.— Appearance of 
the Gorkhas. — Visit to Jung Bahadur. 

It will be seen by the allusion to suttee in the above 
narrative, that the practice occurs in this valley, and 
no longer ago than yesterday, while Captain Xicholetts, 
the assistant, was out shooting, he saw one going 
on. Not being interested in the matter, or fearful, 
perhaps, of appearing to countenance such a rite, he 
passed on without taking notice of it, or learning any 
particulars. 

I observed that Colonel Thoresby expresses himself 
quite decidedly that the murdered General Guggun 
Singh (who had formerly been a chobdar in the 
palace) was the paramour of the rani, and he attri- 
butes the assassination to the Maha Eajah himself. It 
may be worth while to record the sequel of the 
ex-Bajah's proceedings, which actually brought him 
back a prisoner to Katmandu. He remained down at 
the foot of the hills, as I stated before, at Segowly, 
and at that place all the Fuorusciti gathered round 
him, when the attempts by emissaries, against the 
minister's life, were made as I before described. 
The resident here and the native chiefs, urged on 
the Maha Eajah repeatedly to come back to his king- 



202 a bird's-eye VIEW OF INDIA. 



dom, but in vain ; and it was only on the discovery of 
a plot to take away the life of Jung Bahadur, that 
the resolution was adopted to depose him. Shortly 
after this, in July, 1847, and whilst the Terai was 
completely impassable, the ex-Rajah invaded the terri- 
tory with about 1600 men; on hearing of which Jung 
Bahadur despatched a regiment to the foot of the 
hills, who made a night attack on the ex- King's party 
near Bissowly, and succeeded in capturing him, and 
killed several of the leaders of his party ; the two 
principal instigators of the movement, a Guru and a 
Brahman, shamefully deserting the ex-Rajah, and 
securing their safety by flight at the first moment of 
danger. The king was brought back to Nepal, and 
has been kept in honourable confinement ever since. 

March 2nd. — Yesterday I attended the durbar of 
the Maha Rajah. A Sirdar, a very respectable man in 
appearance, came for us at 2 p.m., in one of the 
king's carriages, the first I had seen in the valley, (for 
there are no roads available for driving, except of 
most limited extent,) and we drove to the palace in 
Katmandu. I looked anxiously for the kot where the 
massacre of 1846 had taken place, but could not see 
it, from the mass of buildings and strange-looking 
temples which interposed between the durbar and the 
palace. We found the Maha Rajah superbly dressed, 
sitting on a high gadi, with his legs hanging down, 
and attended by his brother, uncle, and the three 
brothers of Jung Bahadur, now at Calcutta, and from 
thirty to forty Sirdars, all very well dressed, but with 
a mixture of English or European uniform with their 



TEIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



203 



native dress, which is neither one thing nor the other, 
and the effect of which I do not approve. Some 
rather good-looking nach girls, native beauties, 
with a touch of the Mongol in their faces, were in 
attendance, and the whole was interesting from the 
opportunity it gave one of seeing the physiognomies of 
the leading people of the court, who would be the 
men to lead their armies if we had again to encounter 
them. They were a manly-looking, independent set of 
men, some of them ^distinguishable in appear- 
ance from Hindus, and none of them marked by 
Tartar or Mongolian traits. As a whole, however, 
they have a characteristic physiognomy of their own, 
and such, I apprehend, as marks a mixed race. I 
should make the same remark of the sepoys of the two 
or three regiments I saw assembled : one of them was 
composed entirely of one cast— a lowish cast, the 
Munshi informed me, of parbuttees (as all the 
Gorkhas are called in contradistinction to the nawars 
who inhabit the valley of Nepal), inhabitants of the 
hills between here and Gorkha ; and, on the whole, I 
should say that in physique Hinduism is much the 
most predominant element, I observe these points so 
particularly, because many people assert that the 
Gorkhas are not Hindus at all. 

We were afterwards conducted to the arsenal, where 
we saw about 150 brass guns, mostly small,— four, 
six, and eight pounders, and (it was said) from 70,000 
to 80,000 "stand of muskets, and they showed us the 
ball-practice of their artillery, which was indifferent 



enough, 



204 a bihd's-eye VIEW OE INDIA. 



March 3rd. — Yesterday we paid a visit to the 
house of the absent minister, Jung Bahadur, escorted 
there by his brothers. It appears to be much the 
largest house in the valley, and is surrounded with a 
garden containing several kinds of deer in it, and 
amongst others the musk-deer, which is a native of the 
adjoining hills in Thibet. A nach as usual, a very 
good tiffin served up a FAnglaise, that is, on plates, 
— a fight between an elephant and a leopard, or 
rather a massacre of the latter, completed our 
visit. 

On reading further through the records I find that 
I was quite right in supposing that Jung Bahadur* 
and Guggun Singh had belonged to the rani's party 
up to the time of the massacre; they were two of the 
five composing the ministry, were looked upon with 
great hostility by the heir-apparent and his party, 
and sometimes with confidence, more often with 
jealousy and dread by the rajah. The murder of 
Guggun Singh was claimed by the present rajah as his 
own work, with the authority or connivance of his 
father — the ex-Bajah ; and on two occasions the 
subject was alluded to at durbar to our resident by 
the present rajah. Jung Bahadur, who had been the 
fast friend of the rani up to the time of the massacre, and 
who probably carried out her orders very willingly, to 
make away with his political opponents, then turned 
the cards very adroitly upon her, and either by saving 
the life of the heir-apparent, or by appearing to do so, 
made a friend of him and secured the sole power in 
his own hands. 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



205 



March 4th— Yesterday they gave us a review of 
their troops, thirteen regiments of from five to six 
hundred men each. They are all dressed in European 
fashion; the officers in cocked hats, with enormous 
ostrich plumes, which they keep with great difficulty 
on their heads ; and the men in scarlet coats and 
cloth trousers. The parade ground is very small, 
and did not admit of any manoeuvres being attempted, 
even if such had been the order of the day ; but they 
marched very fairly, and fired beautifully, better, 
Erskine thought, than any of our sepoy regiments. 
There seems an immense Anglo-mania amongst these 
people; for independent of the English uniform, 
which the commander-in-chief and all his brothers 
wore, the Maha Rajah's brother joined us, cantering 
on to the ground on his little China pony, and 
dressed altogether in English mufti; a shooting coat, 
waistcoat with a fox on the button, black satin stock, 
and glazed shoes. The Maha Rajah, as a cypher, was 
probably not allowed to be present; and the young 
prince, his brother, the Myla Sahib, as he is called, 
certainly could not have had less attention paid him 
than he had. 

March 6th.— This valley gives one a variety of 
objects to visit and see, and I go out every after- 
noon on an elephant to some lion or other. Yester- 
day we started at 3 p.m., in a delightful climate, and 
went to Patan, about four miles off. This was the 
capital of one of the three rajahs by whom the valley 
was held at the period of its conquest by the Gorkhas 
in 1768, and is one of the most remarkable towns I 



206 



A BIKdVeYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



have seen in the East. The nawars are its principal 
inhabitants; and the profusion of temples which 
adorn it, and the very fine wood-carving, which 
decorates all its windows and doorways, make it 
extremely picturesque. In what would be called the 
Place in a continental town, I counted no fewer 
than nine, if not ten, temples, all grouped together ; 
the greater part of them of Budhist form, of three 
stories, with the projecting umbrella-like form of 
each story, and a gilt bell on the pinnacle. The 
German party, with Prince Waldemar of Prussia, 
who visited this place in 1845, well remark, that the 
Nepalese have borrowed all their arts from China? 
aud not from Hindostan ; and the longer I remain in 
the valley, the more I feel out of India. Yet the 
greater part of the population here are Brahminical 
in religion, and appear far more rigid in their ceremo- 
nial observances, than the inhabitants of Hindostan. 
I observe in the records of the residency, the extraordi- 
nary jealousy with which the Nepal government watch 
over any intercourse between the English and the 
natives. It has been said that whenever the resident 
pays a visit to the durbar, the room is immediately 
whitewashed and purified after the departure of the 
latter ; but I doubt the truth of the story. It is certain, 
however, that in no part of India has there been such 
a signal want of courtesy and attention paid to the 
British as at this court. Above all, they seem most vigi- 
lant in prohibiting all connection between their females 
and a Mletcha, or> indeed, with any one not of their 
own race, and the penalty even when a Kasbin visits 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



207 



the latter, by Gorkha law, is death. It becomes 
somewhat difficult at times to enforce the observance 
of this law on the native soldiers of the resident's 
escort, Hindostanis, and sometimes men of low 
cast, but who, with high pay and nothing whatever 
to do here, frequently become rampant. 

The longer I remain in this valley, the more I am 
pleased with it. The climate is damp, no doubt, and 
the mornings till 8 a.m. foggy and disagreeable, but 
after that hour it is delightful out of doors; and 
the views in the valley, with villages sparkling in 
every direction, in numbers surpassing anything I 
iiave ever seen in my life, having the richest cultiva- 
tion all round them, and an amphitheatre of lofty 
hills, filling the horizon, clothed some of them to the 
summits with forest, others sharp and bare, and 
occasionally glimpses of the Snowy Mountains, with 
Gosain Thai ('24,000 feet), and I think Kinchin 
Junga (28,000) in the far distance, penetrating the 
sky with their brilliant peaks, make the different 
prospects really enchanting. 

March 7 th.— Yesterday to Puspatnath, the most 
holy of the sixty-four temples in the valley. There 
is a large town connected with it, and a hanging- 
wood belonging to the temple clothes the hill at its 
back, giving a very pleasing effect; for wood is 
scarce in this fertile valley, and it is only in connec- 
tion with temples that one sees any trees. We saw 
quantities of goitre, dilapidation in the town as 
elsewhere, innumerable dirty children, and also innu- 
merable bits of exquisite wood-carving on the two- 



208 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



storied brick houses, and I longed for a daguerreo- 
type to bring away a record of them. 

The valley just now seems full of Bhoteans or 
Thibetans, who come down in the winter months, 
but who are unable to live here when the warm 
weather begins, the aul or pestilential fever being 
very fatal to them in this locality. This aid is the 
great characteristic of the country, from the 15th of 
March to the 1st of December : it makes the road 
down to the plains (about sixty miles) nearly impas- 
sable, and it is dreaded apparently as much by 
natives as by Europeans ; for the penalty of making 
the journey is said to be death. Yet, on looking 
through the records, I see numerous instances of 
Europeans going through the Terai during this 
period. The first resident, for instance, Mr. Gardner, 
marched up in July; Mr. Colvin, also resident, 
went down in September ; Captain Smith went down 
in the same month ; Dr. Login, the doctor, also went 
down early in November last year, but he died at 
Dinapoor, and his death was attributed by all to the 
aul, though cholera was the form under which it 
showed itself. I have fixed my departure for the 
11th, and that appears to be as late as any pruden- 
tial views would allow of, but somehow or other I 
have not the least fear of attack, or concern about 
results if any attack should occur. 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 209 



CHAPTER XXXIV. * 



View of Dwala-giri and the Snowy Range. — Budhist Temple. 

Maech 7th. — Yesterday, Erskine and I made an 
excursion out of the valley, and went to a hill called 
Kaulia, about twelve miles distant, on the great or 
rather main road to Thibet and China. We went for 
the purpose of getting a good view of the monarch of 
mountains, Bwala-giri, who springs up five miles 
perpendicular into the air. We were quite compen- 
sated for the ruggedness of our mountain-path, and 
had a glimpse or two of by far the most magnificent 
mountain scene I ever beheld, and I thought when 
we got to the top of our hill, we should have had the 
whole snowy range in one panorama before us. Un- 
fortunately it became somewhat cloudy, and we only 
got an ocean of hills (the lower range at our feet), 
and in the background, Gosain Thai and Dwala- 
giri lifting their heads far above the clouds. If we 
had slept on the extreme summit instead of coming 
down the hill three or four miles to a bungalow of 
the resident about seven miles from Katmandu, we 
should have had as magnificent a view as that de- 
scribed by Dr. Hofmeister ; for at sunrise there was 
not a cloud, and from where we were we saw one of 
the pinnacles of Dwala-giri, as sharp and well- 



210 A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



defined and brilliant as if it had been within five 
miles of us. 

The whole of this mountain-path, both going and 
coming, was crowded with Bhoteas, as the inhabi- 
tants of Thibet call themselves, who flock in great 
numbers to the Nepal valley during the cold months, 
bringing blankets made of shawl wool, and other 
products of their country, and hurrying back before 
the hot weather begins, which gives them fever. 
There also we discovered several Bhotea villages 
situated amongst these hills, quite close to Kat- 
mandu, as well as Khas, Nawar, Brahman, and 
aboriginal races, forming a most complete melange 
of population. On the whole I was very much 
gratified by the trip, by the sublime views, and 
by the inkling it gave me of the NepaJese mode 
of intercommunication with their different provinces 
in the hills. It is along this route that the quin- 
quennial embassy of the Nepaiese to Pekin is sent ; 
a journey which takes, to and fro, a period of four- 
teen months. 

March 12th.— Went yesterday to the Temple of 
Soubinath, a picturesque Budhist temple on a hill 
about a mile from the city, and evidently dating 
from a period when a Thibetan race governed the 
valley. General Fitzpatrick mentions that at the 
period of his visit (1792), it was, or, at all events, 
very recently had been, under the charge of the 
Dalai Lama, who at considerable cost had just 
regilded the very curiously constructed pyramidal 
spire. I know not at whose cost the present efficient 



TEIP THROUGH TJPPEE INDIA. 



211 



repairs of the building are made, but it appears to 
be a shrine of considerable sanctity with the Budhists, 
and we heard of some yesterday, who had come 
a distance of three months' journey to visit it. The 
Brahmans, as usual, have been astute to incorporate 
this object of worship with their own religion ; for 
they have not only built a couple of temples, of the 
usual pyramidal Mahadeo form, as portals to the 
great Budhist dagob-shaped shrine, but on the back 
part of the building they have placed a brass figure 
of Bagwhan, as a pendant to the brass Budh in a 
niche on the front of the building ; and I perceived a 
number of Nawars, principally women, making Puja 
round the temple. 

March 14th.— Started this morning at half-past 
4 a.m. for the top of SMpuri, which General Fitzpatrick 
calculates to be about 4200 feet above the level of 
the valley. We rode about five miles to the foot 
of the hills, and gained the summit in a little more 
than four hours. Then, indeed, we were rewarded 
for our labours, and the view of the snowy range, 
with Dwala-giri to the N.W., and an unbroken line 
of at least 120 degrees of mountains to the eastward, 
and south of east, including Kinchin Junga, made 
the most magnificent coup-cVoeil I ever witnessed, 
and more than I could have conceived. We were 
most fortunate in our day ; for not a cloud had as 
yet gathered on the snowy summits, and we had 
their whole forms in our eye from the base, at a 
horizontal distance of perhaps not more than twenty- 
five miles (they appeared to be not more than ten), 

p 2 



212 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



and with the Kachar, or lower range of Lower 
Thibet in the foreground, with beautiful woody- 
ravines under our feet, extending down the smiling 
valleys of the Tadi and the Tirsal Ganga. We found 
snow in all the crevices and sheltered places of 
Shipuri, and a sharp frost covering the ground in 
some parts with half an inch of rime. The snow 
afforded us, by-the-by, a delicious ice after the 
somewhat severe tug up the mountain, which was 
clothed to the top with Bansh oak, and rhododen- 
dron, and scarcely indeed with anything else. What 
rendered the view more striking was, that on pro- 
ceeding along the narrow spine of the mountain for 
a mile or two, whilst we had the vast snowy range 
and the wilderness of the Kuchar to the northward 
and eastward, on turning round we had the valley of 
Nepal beneath us, covered with tropical and semi- 
tropical vegetation — wheat, rice, plantains, and bam- 
boos. But I must not attempt to describe further the 
impressions which this wonderful landscape has made 
upon me ; for, to use General Mtzpatrick's words, 
who saw the same scene, but apparently under much 
less favourable circumstances, " I never have occa- 
sion to mention the stupendous mountains which 
constitute this most interesting picture, that I do 
not indulge in an enthusiasm of expression as well as 
of imagination that may appear either very affected, 
or very extravagant, both to those who have never 
beheld, or those who are familiar with such Alpine 
scenes." * 

* Fitzpatrick's Nepaul. 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



213 



I must say, however, having now seen this scene 
twice, and from different points of view, that Dr. 
Hofrneister's description, in his published tour 
through India, is not exaggerated; and I believe that 
Prince Waldemar's party considered, after their very 
lengthened and adventurous journey through the 
Himalayan, that the Nepal view was the most magni- 
ficent they had seen. It is gratifying to me also to 
find that Erskine, who has lived for ten or twelve 
years in the Western Himalayah, places our view of 
to-day, far, far above anything he had seen hereto- 
fore/ By-the-by, what does Humboldt mean by 
saying in his late work, "Aspects of Nature " (1849), 
that the summits of granite mountains are always 
rounded : all the ridges of the Himalayah that we 
saw to-day, had edges sharp as a knife ; and Hof- 
meister makes the same remark of the range gene- 
rally, which he describes as being so sharp as to be 
incapable of being walked upon. The granite hills 
of the Deccan of India, and most granite hills, I 
believe, accord with Humboldt's description, but 
nothing can be more abrupt and angular than the 
pinnacles of the Himalayah. 



214 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 



Departure from Nepal. — Descent through the Fever Passes. — 
Description of Terai. 

15th. — Chittong. Left the valley to-day at 
2 p.m.; got here at half-past 6. It only took me 
one hour and twenty minutes up the Chanda Giri, 
and forty minutes down, in a dandy — a conveyance 
which I approve of much for these hills. 

It is remarkable the heavy heart with which I am 
descending into the plains; but to return to a 
life of official duties and solitude at Bombay, 
after the friendly life I have been leading with 
the hospitable Erskines is depressing. There is no 
country in the world in which friendships are more 
valuable than in India, for in no country is there 
so little of out-door amusement or distraction. 
The weather also conspires to aggravate my bad 
spirits, for it was raining and cold all up the pass, 
and at the top I could see just enough of the snowy 
range to perceive what a sublime prospect there 
must be, when clouds and rain do not intervene to 
prevent it. 

The powar (as they call the daramsalas in this 
country), where I am lodged for the night, is, how- 
ever, a very good one, and not infested by noisy, 
dirty faquirs, as some of those were on our road up, 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 315 



to the infinite annoyance of poor M. And I ought 
to remark, whilst I think of it, that I have never 
seen such a profusion of excellent, substantial dar- 
amsalas in any part of the East as in this country j 
and, indeed, I should say that the Nepalese alto- 
gether are the best lodged people in the world. In 
the whole of their populous valley, I do not recollect 
to have seen one cottage of a single story; all of 
them are substantial, brick-built, upper-storied houses, 
and very many of them with a profusion of fine 
wood-carving in the doorways, and projecting win- 
dows, which would make Prout rejoice to find such 
excellent subjects for his pencil. 

16th.— Bhim-Pheed. This march of twelve miles 
took me six hours, the Sissia Gurry mountain occupy- 
ing two hours and a half. This hill, like the China 
Ghatty range, which is still lower, is clothed with fir, 
whereas on the much higher mountains encircling 
Nepal I did not see one. I had showers all the way, 
and found it quite cold and unpleasant. 

17th.— Hetura. Made this march to-day m tour 
hours and a half, my coolies with baggage in eight 
hours • it is the one in which poor M. was so 
much oppressed by the malarious climate m making 
the ascent, and I looked out for her different 
halting-places with interest. To-day, however, there 
was not the same intoxicating, overpowering perfume 
in the air, as when we went up, although there was a 
violent hail and thunder storm directly after 1 
arrived, and the people at this village are complaining 
of the aul. The march is surpassingly beautiiul— 



216 



4 

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



pity that all this fine scenery, as Madame de Stael 
said of the enchantment of Borne, " Jest la mort" 

19th. — Sugowly. Arrived here last night at 
10 p.m., having left Hetura at 6 a.m. — reached 
Bicheakoh on pony in three hours and three quarters 
—got into palkie and through the Terai in two 
hours, and then very quick over the grassy plains 
to this place. What is strictly called the Terai, that 
is, the forest at the foot of the hills, is not more 
than eight miles in breadth, but the march -from 
Bicheakoh to Hetura is up such a gentle ascent that 
the forest is of exactly the same character (chiefly Sal, 
S/wrea robusta), and is as much Terai as the lower 
part; indeed, Hetura is in the heart of the most 
deadly district, and the inhabitants of the village 
looked all sufferers, with enlarged spleens and 
emaciated arms. Coming over the level plains of 
India, after I once left Nepal, made an impression 
by no means favourable after the picturesque and 
occasional sublime scenery of the mountains, and I 
feel so much like a schoolboy, " creeping like snail/' 
unwillingly back to Bombay, that I would much 
rather spend the next ten months in Nepal, lonely as 
it is, but in company with my friends. 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



CHAPTEE XXXVI. 

Benares.— English College erecting.— Temples.— Wealth of Benares. 
—Anglo-Indian Registration. 

Benares, March 2 3rd.— Arrived here this morning 
at 9 a.m., having left Sugowly at 7 a.m. on the 20th ; 
drove over to Motihari, thirteen miles, to Mr. Cock- 
burn's, the joint-magistrate, to breakfast— spent the 
day there, and went on in the afternoon— palanquin- 
dak— to Chuprah, sixty miles, where I breakfasted 
with my old schoolfellow Hathorn— started again at 
2 p.m.," and reached Ghazipoor the next evening at 
6 PiM . —drank a cup of tea with P. Trench, and 
started again in my palkie for this place — 203 miles 
—and a very hot journey I found it. Yesterday, 
hot winds raging, and clouds of dust— very excellent 
roads and uninterrupted cultivation the whole way, 
though after leaving Champawan and Tirhut and the 
moist climate under the hills, the country assumes a 
very sandy and arid-looking appearance as one ap- 
proaches the Ganges. Yet they tell me that the land 
is more fertile here, for a continuance, than in the 
more green-looking and moister district of Gorakpur. 
And my informant— Mr. Keade, who is my host here 
—ought to know, for he was formerly collector of 
Gorakpur, and is now commissioner here. 

24th.— Visited yesterday the new college which is 



218 



A BIRD^-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



building under the auspices of Captain Kittoe, a great 
archaeologist, artist, and enthusiast. My host, Mr. 
Beade, appears to have been very active amongst the 
natives, inducing them, by his own good example, to 
subscribe liberally, and dedicating different portions 
of the building to the names of such as contribute 
largely. The college will afford accommodation for 
about one thousand scholars, and is built in the later 
English Gothic style, from a design of Captain 
Kittoe' s, and is not to cost more than R. 7 5,000 
(£7500). It is by far the best-designed public build- 
ing I have seen in India, and the stone carvings for 
the decoration, which Captain Kittoe is bestowing 
upon it, all of them from his own drawings, and many 
of them executed by himself, are deserving of all 
praise. I threw out a hint to him that we should 
be glad to have his services at Bombay to build us a 
college, and he seemed to like the idea. In fact, he 
is one of those men whose energy shrinks at nothing, 
and I was amused in going round his work -yard to 
see the quantity of work he was undertaking in all 
quarters and of all kinds, — churches, tombs, wood- 
carvings, pulpits; in fact, the contribution of his 
own work to this building must be, in this country, 
worth at least 5000Z. Like all enthusiasts, however, 
his genius requires curbing, and Mr. Beade tells 
me he has much difficulty to keep him within his 
estimates. 

25th. — Have been all through the city this morning, 
to the top of the minar of Arang ZnVs masjid, from 
whence I had a fine view of the whole town, also to 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 219 



the temple of Vishveshwar, the most sacred in Benares, 
dedicated to Shiva as Lord of the universe ; indeed, 
Benares is much more the capital of the Shivaites than 
of the Vaishnevas, for nearly all the temples appear to 
be dedicated to Shiva or to his wife. I then went to the 
Man Mandil, the most ancient building in the city, 
though it does not date back further than three hun- 
dred years, and finally to the house of Kashmiri 
Mull, a very excellent specimen of the dwelling of a 
merchant prince when in its glory, but the firm is in 
a decayed state, and everything is going to rack and 
ruin. " All these localities are to be found figured m 
James Prinsep's views of Benares, so no more need 
be said of them. The town is most remarkable from 
its high houses and extremely narrow streets, too 
narrow and winding even for an elephant, and 
in a tonjon we found it difficult to get along. It is 
remarkable that, although Benares is such an ancient 
city, and although the building material is a very 
excellent sand-stone, so very few specimens (indeed 
none) of antiquity should be found. But the fact, I 
believe, is, that under Mussalman dominion, the 
pilgrimage to Benares, on which the prosperity of 
the town so much depends, and the gifts to 
Brahmans and to temples, were by no means of 
common occurrence. It was only when a Hindu 
dynasty got into power under the Marathas that 
the wealth and piety of India poured them- 
selves out, and under the tolerant system of the 
English they continue to flow here in uninterrupted 
streams. I do not hear, however, of the wealthy 



220 



A BIKd's -EYE VIEW OE INDIA. 



merchants and bankers that Benares used to be 
celebrated for, and the greatest millionaire is not said 
to be worth more than thirty laks (£300,000). Mir- 
zapoor, Muttra, Ahmedabad, and other cities contain, 
no doubt, many more wealthy men. We then 
proceeded to one of the shops, where a wealthy man 
showed us the kincobs, elephant-trappings, &c, of 
Benares manufacture, — some of the latter beautiful ; 
and Mr. Reade, who has an unlimited order from 
government to buy anything handsome for the Hyde 
Park Exposition of 1851, gave a large order. The 
housing of an elephant in gold brocade costs 25 01, 
and with complete paraphernalia about 40 01, and 
those we saw had been just finished for the rajah of 
Yizagapatam of the Madras presidency, a young man 
who has had an English education at Benares, 
and of whom I hear excellent accounts. 

We lastly paid a visit to the Benares College, in 
which Sanscrit is the main study, but unfortunately 
did not find the able principal, Dr. Ballantyne, who 
had gone down the river to blowup some trees with a 
galvanic battery. They— the pupils— are very badly 
lodged at present, the Pandits, about sixty in 
number, being in one building; those obtaining 
English, Persian, Arabic, and vernacular instruction, 
about 250 in number, are in a common bungalow. I 
did not perceive much life or symptoms of activity in 
the establishment • and as little boys of six years old 
enter the classes, the cognomen of College is as ill- 
applied as in some other parts of India. The 
Sanscrit pupils, as at Bombay, do not seem to be 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 221 



sent forth into the world with any means of gaining 
a livelihood, whereas, according to the statements of 
the head-master, Mr. Nicholls, his good pupils in 
English pick up their R.100 a month, without much 
difficulty. He also volunteered the remark that the 
publications of the Delhi Vernacular Society find no 
sale, and that they had cart-loads on their shelves 
which they could not dispose of. 

March " 2 6th.— Drove to Sarnith this morning, 
where I had the ciceroneship of Captain Kittoe, who 
is making excavations by orders of government. It is 
one of the Budhist temples which remain in this part 
of the world ; a hemispherical basement coated with 
stone, and decorated with bold ornaments in relief, 
and surmounted by a solid brick tower, altogether 
about one hundred feet high. There was a large 
Vihara connected with it, and innumerable small 
Budhist temples and dagobas, which are coming to 
light every day. 

Gaya is another locality where the same 
assemblage is to be found, and between Motiharri 
and Chapra I passed another tower built on a 
mound, which, when erect, must have been four 
hundred feet high. Yet, how strange that a religion 
which arose in India— which flourished here for so 
long, and which even now enumerates more votaries 
than any other religion on earth— does not possess a 
single follower at the present day in India Proper. 
I afterwards went with Mr. Reade to see the working 
of the collector's office, and the facility afforded by 
their system for gaining information as to any portion 



222 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OE INDIA. 



of land in the district. We selected a village at 
random, and immediately was produced the map 
giving its limits on a scale of a quarter of a mile to an 
inch, with details as to the quantity of land, wells, 
soil, &c. Other books furnished us with the history 
of the village since the settlement in 1795; the 
names of the proprietors, the mutations in the land, 
the number and subject of the suits brought respect- 
ing the land, &c. &c. ; and all this was furnished in 
about five minutes, and is furnishable to any indi- 
vidual who applies, on the payment of a fee of eight 
annas, or one shilling. 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER t INDIA. 



CHAPTER XXXYIL 

Improvement of Gorakpur under the English. — Leave Benares for 
Calcutta.— Appearance of Bahar.— Employment of Brahmans. 

Mr. Beade, who had charge of one of the pro- 
vinces ceded to us from Oude— Gorakpur— and who, 
as an excellent revenue officer, developed its re- 
sources, gave me some interesting details of its 
improved state. When he joined the station in 
1829, jungle came up to the very doors of the town, 
wild elephants constantly roamed through the can- 
tonment at night, agriculture was quite stationary, 
population thin, and the revenue of the col- 
lectorate was only five laks (£50,000). By opening 
roads, by getting large boats built to drop down the 
Eapty, and by stimulating the capitalists at Calcutta 
to invest their money in the soil, the province has 
become a largely exporting one,— opium, sugar, 
indigo, and grain, finding a ready vent by these 
outlets, which were before unknown to the inha- 
bitants ; and at the settlement which was made a few 
years ago, for twenty years certain, the revenue was 
raised to twenty-two laks (£220,000), and yet it 
is considered to be too lightly assessed. He says, 
when he first arrived there, the ryots used only to 
get three (Bengal) seers of indigo the acre or bigah 
(I forget which), but by increased care, with the 



224 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



incisions and scrapings (and for this the children of 
the ryot are as effective as himself), the produce has 
increased to nine seers! The province generally 
reminded me much of Gujarat, from its fertility, its 
greenness, its frequent mango-groves, but in its 
roads of such economic construction, and in its 
water-carriage to Calcutta, how infinitely superior ! 
And indeed, although we boast in Western India, 
and justly boast, of the fertility of Gujarat, when 
one compares it with the hundreds of square miles of 
equal fertility and superior moisture which Gorak- 
pur, Champaran, and Tirhut present, the Bombay 
province becomes quite an infinitesimal considera- 
tion. 

March 27 th.— Sasseram, seventy-two miles. Left 
Benares yesterday at half-past 4 p.m., arrived here at 
12 a.m., for it is only practicable now to travel by 
night. The heat not oppressive, as the hot wind 
had scarcely got up, and was at my back, and the 
more I approach Bengal, the cooler I shall find it, 
they tell me. The horizon for the last twenty miles 
has been bounded by a low range of hills on the 
right, a spur of the Vindhya, round or under which 
the Soane rolls, which I cross to-night, and so get 
into Bahar. 

28th.— Shereghatty, fifty-six miles. Left Sas- 
seram half-past 4 p.m., got here half-past 8 a.m., 
exactly three and a half miles an hour. The dis- 
tances furnished me by Dr. Butter, the Benares post- 
master, are all wrong. Crossed the Soane yesterday; 
its sandy beds, and narrow channels of water, only 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



225 



one of which required a boat, took me exactly an 
hour ; and as the men came a good pace, I calculate 
the distance is three miles, — a formidable obstacle to a 
railway, the whole being under water, as it is, for 
four or five months of the year. Directly on enter- 
ing Bahar, I was struck with the quantity of jungle, 
the first of any extent I had seen for hundreds of 
miles, and reminding one of our side of India. But 
the soil is evidently very sterile, as the Vindya range 
dies away in these plains, and quartz and sandstone 
prevail abundantly. Moreover, as a Mussalman, 
Shaik Kibbudin of Sasseram who called on me at 
the bungalow, informs me, the rainy season 'is very 
precarious here, and the appearance of the country 
justifies the remark. 

I forgot to observe yesterday, in my observations 
of the Gorakpur district, that Mr. Keade, having 
persuaded the Calcutta capitalists that an outlay 
might be beneficially made by way of advances to the 
ryots for sugar, for opium, &c, he succeeded in 
inducing them to shell out, and their gomashtas or 
managers were employed in different parts of the 
country, to make advances to the cultivators. Success 
being fully commensurate with the outlay, these 
parties at once rushed from three laks (£30,000), 
which was the limit suggested, to thirty laks, which 
they threw into the country in one year, and pro- 
duced great mischief to the people, as well as injury 
to themselves by their over-speculation. 

In the Champ&ram collectorate, the opium agent, 
Mr. McDonald, a shrewd Scotchman, informed me 

Q 



226 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



that he advanced every year thirteen laks (£130,000) 
to the ryots for their opium, which is a new 
growth in that country, and the advance therefore is 
so much additional hard cash introduced into 
the country. Unfortunately the greater part of 
it is under Lord Cornwallis's perpetual settlement to 
the Bettiah Kajah, who pays three or five laks (I 
forget which), and pockets about twelve laks 
(£120,000) besides, and yet, on diligent inquiry, I 
cannot learn that such a millionaire is of the least 
benefit to the country ; and it is certain that if Govern- 
ment had the land instead of the rajah, by additional 
cultivation and improved cultivation the revenue 
might go up to thirty laks instead of fifteen. 

I observe that Brahmans are extremely little 
employed in the public offices in this part of India, 
and I understand that they are chiefly illiterate, and 
beggars. On the other hand, Mussalmans are found 
in great numbers in the judicial offices, thus forming 
an exact contrast to what occurs on the Bombay 
side ; the cause, however, being obvious, viz., that 
the Bombay Government has succeeded to a Brah- 
man dynasty, under which all offices of any value 
were filled by Brahmans, whilst in the north-west 
and Bengal presidencies the Mussalmans were nearly 
everywhere our predecessors. The Hindus in the 
offices are chiefly Kayats (who are not, I believe, of 
a very good cast), and their appearance is decidedly 
inferior, both as to good looks and intelligence, to 
that of the Mahratta Brahmans. 

£9th.— Barkutta, sixty miles. Left at half-past 



TRIP THROUGH T T PPER INDIA. 



007 



4 p.m.j arrived here half-past S a.m. I have now 
got on comparatively high land, and find it much 
cooler. The rivers now run south into the Bay of 
Bengal, instead of north-easterly to the Ganges, so I 
have" crossed the watershed. The grand trunk-road 
continues to excite my admiration fully as much as 
when I first became acquainted with it at Meerut, 
450 miles further north ; for although kunkur is no 
longei available here, and they are obliged in these 
parts to resort to a very indifferent material, quartz, 
and therefore the road does not present the same 
homogeneous compact mass as the roads of kunkur, 
still, by mixing the quartz with gravel, and I suspect 
some lime, they have obtained a noble road; and 
then such fine bridges ! One last night, over the 
FulgOj which is now building, and which is the 
finest work of the kind I have seen in India; a 
suspension bridge the night before, over the Dhaclur 
(I believe) ; and a fine bridge here, close to the 
bungalow, over the Barrakur ; and all these bridges 
cross the stream, be it observed, at a level, — a raised 
causeway sustaining the road, and maintaining an 
excellent level throughout the line. 

30th.— Fitcoorie, fifty-four and a half miles. 
Left at half-past 4 p.m., arrived half-past 8 a.m., 
bein^ rather less than three miles and a-half an hour. 
The bearers one stage were the smallest, slightest 
men I have seen in India. I don't think one of 
them exceeded five feet, and the only one with 
anything like muscle, betrayed, by his thick lips and 
woollv hair, such anmistakeable signs of African 

Q 2 



228 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OP INDIA. 



paternity, that it would be a curious fact to ascertain 
how a stalwart Sidi * could have found his way to the 
Hindu letto conjugate. I did not venture, however, 
to propose any questions. Country still hilly and 
sterile, almost wholly uncultivated, with abundance 
of quartz rock, and occasionally granite or gneiss 
cropping out. They mend the road, however, exclu- 
sively with quartz. 

* Sidi is the universal term by which the African negro is denomi- 
nated in India. It is connected with Saiad, by which the descendants 
of the ^Prophet are known. The Spanish term Cid has the same 
origin. 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



229 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

Native Gratitude to English Benefactors. 

I was pleased to find whilst at Benares in 
what grateful recollection the names of Warren 
Hastings and Jonathan Duncan, and particularly 
the latter, were held by the inhabitants. Jonathan 
Duncan, who was afterwards governor of Bombay, 
originally settled Benares, as the expression is, and 
his institutions have had the singular fortune, so rare 
in India, of subsisting intact to this day. A common 
form of speech by a native of Benares, who desires 
to say something nattering to a European, is,—" I 
your slave,— you my god, my father, my mother, my 
Dunkin." Mr. Eeade, my host, whose mother was 
the daughter of Warren Hastings' pamphleteering 
friend, Major Scott, possesses a very fine miniature 
of Hastings, by Zoffani (engraved in Gleig's Life), 
and he says that the veneration of Hastings is such 
at Benares, that he has no doubt the portrait would 
sell for ten thousand rupees (1000£) 

Amongst other persons whom I saw at Benares 
was the deposed Rajah of Curg, of whose atrocities 
and cruelties to British subjects, as well as to his own, 
I heard such accounts whilst in his country some 
years ago; 'but here the man appears well-disposed, 



230 a biedVeye view op iisdia. 



perfectly quiet ; and he drives about the station 
with a high-trotting horse in his buggy, and appears 
much liked in the English society. He gets 5000 
rupees a month, and dresses one of his two daughters 
in the English style, and is anxious to send her home 
as a present to the Queen ! 

March 31st. — Kyrasole, sixty-five miles. Left at 
a quarter-past 3 p.m., arrived at half-past 9 a.m. 
Have got out of sterile, raviny Bahar, and find myself 
among the coal districts. The country somewhat 
improved in fertility, and much in moisture, rice 
growing in parts, and the borassus palm very gene- 
rally ; still much jungle, and the soil, red sandstone 
and quartz, barren enough. They all tell me that 
the hot weather has not set in yet, so I am very 
fortunate, and I certainly have suffered neither from 
heat nor dust, except when I ran all day from 
Chuprah with the hot wind in my face. They make 
the roads here in parts either with iron slag or 
laterite — the latter, I suspect, as the face of the road 
is verv like those in Cevlon, or the Eed Hill near 
Eeigate: I found, subsequently, on inspection, it is 
kunkur tinged with iron. They are obliged, however, 
to resort to other stone, though, occasionally, kunkur 
seems to be available in quantities. I find excellent 
bungalows all along the road, and it is only a traveller 
used to the Bombay and Madras presidencies who 
can well appreciate them. The establishment is — 
a khansaman, or butler, six rupees ; bearer, four 
rupees ; sweeper, three rupees ; they have all punkas 
and tatties, and sufficient furniture, crockery, and 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



231 



silver. In short, a traveller need take nothing but 
his tea and sugar. The one I am in to-day is 
the best I have seen, but much depends on the 
khansaman, and if he is a careful fellow, he sup- 
plies many things not furnished by the superin- 
tendent. 

April i s t_ Mamaru, fifty-three miles. Did the 
journey at rather less than three and a half miles an 
hour. Find the climate here quite Beugally— moist 
heat— determination to the skin— and nothing but 
rice-fields, tanks, and the ugly brab-tree (borassus 
flabelliformis), so like the broom at the mast-head of 
a ship for sale. 

Sitting beside this grand trunk-road for the last 
few days, as I have done, it is remarkable to see how 
little remunerative traffic' there is upon it— by traffic, 
I mean travellers who can afford to pay for transport. 
The passengers are chiefly foot-passengers; and I 
have met, since the 26th, when I started, only Lady 
Dalhousie's party (three persons), and, I think, three 
other carriages, and four palanquins. Supposing that 
a railway proceeds along this line, and except the 
obstacle of the Soane— which, after all, is nothing, 
engineeringly speaking— where are the profits to 
come from ? Coal from the Burdwan mines will form 
a considerable item, but sterile, uncultivated Bahar 
can afford little else ; and the price of rice here does 
not seem to show that it can find its way to Calcutta 
with advantage. Then as to passengers : the greater 
number of those who make the route, as I observed, 
are pedestrians, and they do the journey from Benares 



232 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



to Calcutta in about thirty days. An eka, or one- 
horse chaise, or a bullock hackry, either of which 
holds three, does the journey in the same time, for 
forty rupees; but the fare by railway, at twopence 
a-head per mile (420 miles), would be thirty-five 
rupees. It therefore would seem to follow that only 
that class who can afford to have a carriage to them- 
selves would travel by railway; or, supposing that 
the facilities of railway travelling would increase the 
number of travellers tenfold, multiply that class by 
ten, and add to it the number of European travellers, 
(and the dak-books furnish accurate statistics on this 
head), and you have the total number of passengers 
who may be expected. My opinion is, that the 
number will be exceedingly small. 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



233 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

Arrival at Calcutta.— Voyage to Bombay.™ Indian Confessions. 

April 2nd.— Reached Calcutta and Mr. Mills's 
nicely furnished house at 9 a.m. Spent seven days 
in Calcutta without much enjoyment. I had seen the 
town and its institutions thoroughly before, and at a 
better season of the year, for the heat was now 
becoming very great, and the nights especially were 
oppressive. I feel quite decided, however, that, on 
the whole, Calcutta is the best place in India to 
reside at. We have, I think, a better climate at 
Bombay; and our hill station within twenty-four 
hours, and rainy monsoon station within twelve hours, 
and the sea always open to us on the west, are all 
great advantages ; but the city life of Calcutta, which 
allows of society on easier forms than does our vie de 
campagne of Bombay, its much larger society con- 
taining, of course, more talent and more variety, its 
being the seat of government, which brings many 
more public topics on the tapis every day, and its 
excellent English shops give it, to my taste, resources 
which no other part of India can boast of. Besides 
which the grand trunk-road in one direction, and the 
increasing number of steamers in the other, are daily 
making it a more facile arrangement to escape from 



234 a bird's-eye VIEW OF INDIA. 



Calcutta to a different climate, when ill-health or 
fancy require it. Was at Lord Dalhousie's great 
ball, which presented less beauty than I anticipated, 
and found him looking all the worse for his two 
years' residence in India, and at the Mills's hos- 
pitable board was glad to renew my acquaintance 
with such able men as John Colvin, Halliday, and Sir 
H. Elliot. 

The most agreeable two hours I spent in Calcutta 
were with Peel at his old house in Garden Reach. 
We discussed law reform, and Bethune and his black 
acts, which are exciting so much discussion in India 
at the present moment, &c. 

April 20th.— At sea on board the Malta, lat. 
10 deg. 30 min., off Quilon. 

Left Calcutta at 8 a.m., on the 8th, in the Had- 
dington steamer, and the sand-heads at daybreak on 
the 10th; reached Madras on the 14th, at 9 p.m., 
where we stopped twenty-four hours, and reached 
Point de Galle the 19th, at 1 p.m., stopped there 
twenty-four hours, started the 18th, in Malta 
steamer, and am now slowly making my way up the 
Malabar coast to Bombay at five and a half miles an 
hour. 

A large party on board the Haddington, but no 
very interesting elements. Jung Bahadur and his 
suite from Nepal, eighteen in all, comprising his 
priest, his doctor, artist, two brothers, and some of 
the principal sirdars of his court, were the most 
remarkable, Erskine's predecessor at Katmandu, 
Colonel Thoresby, was also there, — a gentlemanlike, 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



235 



well-informed old man, and great Sanscrit scholar ; Sir 
Edward Gambier and his wife, returning from India; 
Lady Buller, with two sweet children, going down to 
Ceylon, to spend the hot weather at Neuralia ; 
Colonel Lockwood of the 3rd Dragoons, who keeps 
his stall at the Opera, and lodgings in Jermyn Street, 
with his regiment at Umbala, close to the foot of the 
Himalayah— and he vibrates between the two, year 
after year. He travels with great speed ; and this 
year came down from Umbala in nine and a half 
days, about eleven hundred miles. 

At Madras I went on shore for a few hours • and 
a friend of mine there, a magistrate, told me a curious 
case which had just occurred, illustrative of Indian 
confessions. Two men had been tried for a murder, 
some years ago, and, upon slight circumstantial 
evidence, but principally on their own confessions, 
they were convicted and sentenced to transportation. 
The other day some thugs, who had been caught in 
Central India, made a full confession of their crimes, 
and, amongst others, of this very murder in Madras. 
The government inquired into the matter, and finding 
that two men had been transported for this very 
offence, immediately gave orders that they should be 
brought back to India, and directed that some com- 
pensation should be made to them on their return. 
Major Clerk (my informant) had to carry out this 
order ; but it appeared that one man had died under 
sentence, and the other, directly he touched the shore 
of Madras, scampered away like a hare to his own 
village, and would not go near the government 



236 



A BI"RT>'s-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



authorities, who were desirous of hearing his story, and 
of doing something for him. The poor fellow thought, 
no doubt, that he had had enough to do already with 
the government. 

Mr. Reade, the commissioner of Benares, told me 
a story that well caps the above. When he was 
collector at Gorakpur, he one day visited the jail, 
and happened to ask a prisoner what he was there 
for. The man smiled, and said " Murder/' Reade 
replied, that murder was no joking matter \ on which 
the man said, « Yes, but I am not guilty ; and what 
is more, the man is alive now." There was some- 
thing in the man's manner which made Mr. Reade 
inquire particularly into the case ; and the story told 
him was, that the party supposed to be murdered, 
who was a barkandaz of police, had had an intrigue 
with the wife of the prisoner's brother, upon which 
the prisoner and his three brothers laid a plot to 
waylay him one night, and give him a good drubbing. 
They did so accordingly, and the policeman either 
fell, or was thrown by them, into a river, by the side 
of which they had been waylaying him. The man 
being missing, and suspicion being strong against the 
four brothers, it was agreed amongst themselves that, 
as harvest-time was near, the prisoner should take 
the crime entirely on his own shoulders, and so 
get the others liberated. He did so, admitted 
the murder, and of course was found guilty; but, 
probably on the score of the corpse not being 
found, was sentenced only to imprisonment for life^ 
and a pension was given to the family of the mur- 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



237 



dered policeman. This story was told with such 
vrai-similitude, that Reade made a careful inquiry 
into the whole, and found every word of it true ; and 
after much trouble discovered the policeman hundreds 
of miles off, acting as a peon at the Court of Nagpore, 
glad to think that his family, in the mean time, had 
been well provided for at Gorakpur, by a pension 
from Government for his supposed death. The rogue 
had no doubt kept purposely out of the way, in order 
to secure this provision for his family. 

My own experience of a famous case at Tanna 
tallies well with the above stories ; for there I saw 
three prisoners standing at the bar who had given a 
circumstantial confession of a murder, and pointed 
out the very spot where the bones of the murdered 
man would be found. These were produced in 
court ; and part of the clothes and the cast thread 
of the murdered man were identified by his friends 
and relations. Yet the doctor, my intelligent friend, 
Dr. Kirk — who accompanied Sir W. Harris to Abys- 
sinia — on examining the bones ascertained that they 
belonged to three or four different corpses ; and as this 
incident gave a sort of hitch to the proceedings, and 
prolonged the trial, the result was, that before it was 
over, the murdered man himself walked into court, and, 
it is said, was seen to examine his own bones with in- 
finite curiosity. The story which he told, and which 
accounted for his remarkable disappearance from his 
village on the night of the supposed murder, was 
not the least remarkable part of the tale, and is a 
good illustration of " Manners in the East." He 



238 



A BIKdVeYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



had been seen last somewhat near the house of the 
prisoners ; and he stated that as he was going 
homeward, he met four or five Arab soldiers, who 
pressed him into their train to carry a bundle, and who 
made him accompany them for a six weeks' march into 
the interior, somewhere beyond Poona. When they 
dismissed him, he was taken ill of fever, and laid 
some months sick at a village in the Deccan. When, 
at last, after four months' absence, he got back to his 
own village, he found that three of his neighbours 
stood a near chance of being hung, on their own 
confession, for murdering him. So, like an honest 
fellow, he made his way to the criminal court, which, 
luckily for the prisoners, was not above ten miles off. 
It would seem most probable that the confessions in 
question had been extorted by the violence of the 
subordinate native police. 

April 24th. — Bombay. Arrived here to-day at 
4 p.m., fourteen days from the sand-heads, and sixteen 
from Calcutta. 

At Galle, where I stopped twenty-four hours, I 
found at the hotel my old elephant-shooting friend 
Captain Gallwey, who was coming up to Bombay on 
his road to England, and who of course was 
delighted to find that I was on the same tack, as I 
had been for years inviting him to pay me a visit. We 
had a tedious passage of six days up the coast in the 
Malta steamer, which, with five hundred horse-power, 
did not average more than seven miles an hour ; but 
after the crowd and heat of the Haddington, we 
found the change at first very agreeable, though the 



TRIP THROUGH UPPER INDIA. 



239 



ennui and want of interest in all steam-boat travelling 
soon made the trajet a very dull one to us. Unless 
on shipboard one has a good cabin to retire to, in 
which there is sufficient air and sufficient light to 
enable you to pass some hours quietly every day, 
the life becomes worse than that of any prison — 
at least to me. 

I find myself so busy on returning to Bombay, 
with arrears of educational controversies awaiting me; 
with a new law court to be established; with my 
chambers in the court-house to furnish and fit myself 
into ; and with the letters of four overland mails to 
reply to, that I am unable to devote a few minutes to 
the taking a careful retrospect of the tour, which has 
lasted exactly five months. It has been, on the 
whole, an exceedingly interesting one, as it has given 
a complete inspection (bird's-eye view, though it be) 
of the whole of Upper India. I have learnt to 
know the Eajputs in their most honoured localities ; 
the Mussalmans of Oude in their fertile but dis- 
organised kingdom; and the active and thriving 
Gorkhas in their mountain fastnesses. I have seen 
nearly all the fine architectural remains of Upper 
India, and at the Holy Benares, at Muttra, Bindra- 
bund, and Ayodhia. I have seen Hinduism and its 
operations in their most developed state. Above all, 
I have seen such a phase of the Himalaya as to 
efface every other scene of mountain magnificence 
which I had before witnessed. Living, moreover, 
almost exclusively with civilians, I have been enabled 
to study with some care the workings of government 



240 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF INDIA. 



in the north-west provinces and in Bengal ; and, on 
the other hand, the coming in contact with indigo- 
planters and grantees, has given me some little 
inkling as to the manner of man which characterises 
this class. 



CHAPTER XL. 



ON THE GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE PRINCIPAL 
LANGUAGES OF INDIA.* 

India, according to the most temperate authorities, t 
contains about one hundred and forty-one millions of 
inhabitants, who are distributed by Native geographers 
over fifty-seven, or, as some write, eighty-four provinces, 
all with peculiar languages. J Although this enumeration 
of different languages is, as we shall presently see, grossly 
exaggerated, there is no doubt that the diversity of 
tongues is very great ; and the obstacle thereby inter- 
posed to free intercourse, and the diffusion of ideas from 
any central authority, is too obvious to be pointed out. 

In our present state of knowledge, no description of 
the limits of the principal languages of India can be 
anything more than an approximation to the truth, nor 
is it likely, for a long period to come, that an accurate 
language-map of India can be constructed. For, first of 
all, the limits of two neighbouring languages often occur 
in wild, unexplored, or unpeopled, tracts of country, so as 
to prevent the tracing of a precise boundary line ; and, 
secondly, there have been such frequent vicissitudes 
among the governing Hindu races, each extending its 
language in turn over the territory of its neighbour, as 

* Reprinted from the Journal of the Bombay Branch of the 
Royal Asiatic Society, January, 1853. 
4" Elphinstone's India, vol. i. p. 5. 

J See Colebrooke, in As. Res. vol. xxiii. p. 220 ; hut these are 
mythical numbers. 



242 



ON THE LANGUAGES 



to have created in many parts a complicated intermingling 
of languages, which would require for their unravelment 
a more minute inquiry, and closer study of the localities, 
than any European has yet been able to institute. Thus, 
in the country called, in Hindu nomenclature, Karndtaka 
Desa., or the high table-land above the Western and 
Eastern Ghats of the peninsula, — which the English call, 
with no very precise definition, the Deccan,* the Southern 
Maratha Country, and Mysore, — Canarese and Maratha 
dynasties have alternately succeeded each other, and both 
have been broken in upon by invading powers from the 
Coromandel Coast in the south, so that the Canarese, 
Marithi, and Tamil languages, have penetrated, each 
with a deep indent, into the language-region of its 
neighbours. Thus, on travelling through the S&tara 
districts last January, I found Canarese spoken in vil- 
lages much to the north of the limits assigned to it by 
the best authorities, reaching nearly up to Pandarpur ; 
Marathi, on the other hand, extends far to the south of 
Pandarpur, and Canarese and Maratha villages will be 
found to alternate throughout these districts, just as 
Johannes von Muller describes villages in Switzerland, 
where French is spoken on one side of a crooked street, 
and German on the other. 

Notwithstanding, however, the numerous languages 
which have been assigned by Brahmans to India, it was 
perceived by them from a very early period that a simple 
classification might be made; and a two-fold division 
was determined on, depending, mainly, on geographical 
considerations, by which five northern languages were 
grouped in one class, and five southern languages in 
another, under the denominations, so familiar to us in 
India, of Panch Gaur and Panch Dravid. 

According to the enumeration of the Brahman pundits, 

* The ancient Hindu geographers gave the name of Dakshina, or 
the South, to the whole of India south of the Narhadda : the Maho- 
medans confined this name to the country south of the Krishna, while 
the English apply it in a different sense from either and seem to 
confine it to the table-land between Kandesh and the Krishna. 



OF INDIA. 



243 



whom Colebrooke cites,* the following is the distribution 
usually given ; and I need scarcely mention, that whilst 
the name of Gaur, or Bengal, is extended to the whole 
of Northern India, or Hindustan, the name of that part 
of the Coromandel Coast between the twelfth and 
thirteenth parallels of north latitude, called Dravida, is 
applied to the whole peninsula :— 

The five " Qaursr The five '< Dravids" 

1. Saraswati (extinct). 1. Tamil. 

2. Kanoji. 2, Marathi. 

3. Gaur, or Bengali. 3. Carnatic. 

4. Maithila, or Tirhuti. 4. Telinga, or Telugu. 

5. Orissa, or Urya. 5. Gujarati. 

Mr. Elphinstonef gives a somewhat different division, 
assigning Gujarati to the northern, and Urya to the 
southern languages ; and the Haiga Brahmans, in Canara, 
give a third list of the Dravids, excluding, strangely 
enough, the country on the Malabar Coast where they 
themselves are domiciled. J 

But it is unnecessary to examine these Braliminical 
divisions furuher, as they are founded on no scientific 
principle, and convey little accurate information, al- 
though, by accident, the binary or mechanical division 
which geography, or, perhaps, a fanciful notion of sym- 
metry, seems to have suggested, is the same which the 
increased knowledge of philology in the present day 
enables us to adopt. It would be unjust, however, not 
to add that the largeness of views, and the great amount 
of observation which rendered a generalisation so nearly 
approaching to the truth possible, does infinite credit to 
Brahniinical intellect at the early period when these 
conclusions were drawn. 

When European scholars first began to study the 
languages of India with diligence, they were inclined to 
suppose that the southern languages, as well as the 

* See Colebrooke, As. Res. vol. xxiii. p. 219. 

f India, vol. i. p. 278. 

J F. Buchanan's Mysore, vol. iii. p. 90. 

s 2 



244 



ON THE LANGUAGES 



northern, were derived from the Sanskrit. Dr. Cary, 
Wilkins, and Colebrooke, were all of this opinion. Mr. 
Campbell, in his Grammar of the Telugu or Telinga 
language, was the first to dispute this affiliation, and he 
pointed out the mode in which the Bralimans had made 
large importations from the sacred language of their 
religion into all the southern tongues, so as to give the 
latter the appearance of a derivation from the Sanskrit. 
Ellis, who is the great authority on the southern lan- 
guages, carried the investigation further ; and he showed 
that the chief languages of the peninsula, — viz. (1) Kar- 
mitaca, (2) Telugu, (3) Malayalam, (4) Tulu, (5) Tamil, 
- — all belong to one family,* of which the latter is the 
most cultivated ; and now, Campbell, Ellis, Rask, and 
Lassen all seem to agree with the Rev. Mr. Taylor, that 
the Tamil and Sanskrit languages belong to essentially 
distinct stocks, f Mr. Taylor further thinks that there 
was originally one simple homogeneous dialect, spoken by 
rude aborigines, from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin, of 
which the Tamil is the cultivated representative. 

It scarcely, however, accords with the philological 
experience of other parts of the world, that at a period 
when the native of IndLi was a rude ravage, one homo- 
geneous tongue should pr3vail over the vast limits 
comprehended between the Himalayas and the Equator 
— for Ceylon, the Laccadives, and the Maldives equally 
fall within the Tamiloid zone. It would rather seem 
that, if such a wide extension of one language, or of 
closely allied languages can be demonstrated, its diffusion 
must be owing to the operations of some race already 
arrived at a considerable degree of culture. Undoubtedly 
the evidence of this wide diffusion of what I term (in 
order to avoid theorising), a Tamiloid language, is very 
strong, and it is accumulating every day. Thus Mr. 
Reeve points out, in the Preface to his Canarese Dictionary, 
that "the affinity between the Teloogoo and Karnataca is 

* See note in Campbell's Telugu Grammar, p. 3. 
+ See Preface -to Bottler's Tamil Dictionary. 



OF INDIA. 



so great, that frequently it is only necessary to change an 
initial or an inflection to make the correspondence com- 
plete." But Ellis, as we have seen, shows both of these 
languages to be cognate with Tamil. Again : the Tamil- 
speaking inhabitants of the Coromandel Coast can make 
themselves intelligible when they get into the districts on 
the opposite side of the peninsula, where Malayalam is 
vernacular.* So " the language of Tulava, (on the Coast 
of Canara,) has a strong resemblance to that of Mala- 
ysia, "t though, as I gather from the Tulu-speaking 
natives of the Malabar Coast whom I have met in Bom- 
bay^ they are unable to understand their Malayalam 
neighbours. But it is not only in the fertile lowlands 
near the sea on either side of the peninsula, and on the 
easily-traversed plains of the plateau, that the Tamil 
family of languages is to be found. The valuable collec- 
tion of manuscripts accumulated by Colonel Mackenzie, 
and the inscriptions gathered at great expense and pains 
by Mr. Walter Elliot, § afford us evidence of those wide 
provinces having been reigned over by Tamil and Cana- 
rese dynasties within historical periods, and hence the 
diffusion of these languages is explained. ^ It is only 
when we penetrate the more remote and wild localities 
of India,— that singular language-group, or isle of lan- 
guages (as Hitter terms it), the Nil Giris, where, it is 
said* five distinct languages are vernacular, the wilds 
of Gondwana, the hill-tops of Central India and of 
Sindh, — and listen to the evidence as to the traces there 
discoverable of a Tamiloid tongue, that we become con- 
vinced of its wide and early diffusion. Captain Hark- 

* F. Buchanan's Mysore, vol. ii. p. 346. + Ibid. vol. iii. p. 90. 

J Hundreds of these men (they call themselves two thousand) are 
to be found in Bombay as palanquin-bearers, and hamalls ; but the 
bearer caste generally in Bombay, called Camatties, and the Bui 
above the Ghats in the Deccan, who carry palanquins, are from Tel- 
linghana. The Camatties in Bombay have been settled here for a 
long period, but retain their Tulugu language, and, by the last census, 
it appears that the part of the native town where they are located 
contains above eleven thousand souls. 

§ See article on Hindu Inscriptions, Jour. Roy. As. Soc. vol. iv. p. 8. 



246 



ON THE LANGUAGES 



ness, who was the first scholar to examine closely the 
language spoken by that remarkable race the Todas on 
the Ml Giris, pronounces it to be closely allied to the 
Tamil, # and the subsequent investigations of the German 
missionaries confirm this conclusion, t The inhabitants 
of the mountains of Coorg, who in independent bearing, 
good looks, and all the outward signs of well-being, are 
by far the finest race I have seen in India, speak a lan- 
guage called Kodagu, which Mr. Ellis informs us is a 
dialect of Tulu.J On the crest of that high and romantic 
range, extending from Cochin to Cape Comorin, and 
reaching to eight or nine thousand feet above the sea, 
Francis Buchanan found that the rude tribes spoke " a 
dialect differing only in accent from Tamil. "§ Again : 
Mr. Ellis points out that the language of the mountaineers 
of Rajmahal, dividing Bengal from Bahar, abounds in 
terms common to the Tamil and Telinga ; and Mr. Hodg- 
son, who has paid particular attention to this subject, 
after comparing the vocabularies of seven languages now 
spoken by rude tribes in Central India, pronounces all 
of them to belong to the Tamil ;|| and the Brahui, on 
the mountains of Sindh, are said to have a language 
very like that of the Todas. Indeed, the interesting in- 
quiries which our colleague Dr. Stevenson is now con- 
ducting respecting the grammatical structure of Indian 
languages, render it not impossible that a Tamiloid 
tongue will be hereafter found to have constituted the 
original staple of all the languages of India, although it 
has become obscured, and in some instances, like Celtic 
by the Anglo-Saxon, completely effaced by the preponde- 
rance of the intruding Arian element from the north. 

* Description of a singular aboriginal race, &c, by Captain Harkness. 
London, 1832. 

f See paper by Dr. Stevenson, in the Bombay Journal, vol. i. p. 155 ; 
and a note by Dr. Schmid, ibid. vol. iii. p. 84. 

J Campbell's Telugu Grammar ; but I learn from the Rev. Mr. 
Mogling of Mangalore, that it is more closely allied to Tamil and 
Malayalam than to Tulu. 

§ Mysore, vol. ii. p. 338. 

|| Paper read before the Calcutta Asiatic Society, December/ 1848. 



OF INDIA. 247 



However this may be, in the state of knowledge which 
we now possess, we are able to determine that a closely 
allied family of languages extends oyer the_ whole of 
Southern India, cropping out on the hill- ops in Central 
India, and on the mountains of the West, and^ perhaps, 
also traceable on the southern slopes of the Himalayas. 
According to Eask, who, with great Ungual f^*?™> 
examined the language of Ceylon on the spo , Cingalese 
also, contrary to the received opinion, belongs to this 
family* and Lassen states that the languages of the 
Laccadives and Maldives come within the same category^ 
Advancing towards the north, we are met by the 
intruding languages of a different family, of which 
Marathi, or its dialect, Konkani, is the southernmost 
representative ; and, according to the evidence which 
Lassen with great industry has collected, it would appear 
that a race from Central Asia, entering India at the 
north-west,£ had diffused themselves and their language, 
their religion and their Brahminical distinctions, over the 
plains of India, at a period before true history begins. 
We may even see traces on record of the mode by which, 
within a comparatively recent period, the priestly race 
from the north insinuated themselves into Southern 
India. In a manuscript in the Malayalam language 
written on palm leaves, and forming part of Colonel 
Mackenzie's collection, an account is given of the intro- 
duction of Brahmans from the north, which seems to 
contain some glimpses of true history. After describing 
the elevation of the land on the Malabar Coast by the 
power of Parasu Rama,-a tradition which from its 
recurrence in one shape or another along the whole coast, 

* Preface to Sinaalesisk Skriftlaere. Colombo: 1821. Cited by 
Lassen, Indische AlteHJmrnskimde, 1. p. 199. . 

+ The missionary Weigle attributes tbe language of these islands to 
t JJatr famUv, but apparently without reason. Zat.chnft der 
Deutsche'n Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft, 1848, p. £>\ 

X Indische Alterihimskunde, i. p. 400, et seq. Dr. Weber, how 
ever, contends, that the Arians entered India from the north. See 
Inditche Studien, p. 165. Leipsic : 1849. 



248 ON THE LANGUAGES 



and from geological evidence, may possibly shadow forth 
a true physical fact, the gradual elevation of the seabord, 
—it is said, " he made the ocean withdraw, and Kerala 
was created." Eama then "brought Brahmans from 
many points, and placed them in Keralam, but they 
would not stay there. Therefore, having considered, 
he brought the Arya Brahmans from the Utara Bhurni 
[Land of the North], and settled them there. The Arya 
Brahmans continued to reside with constancy in Mala- 
yalam. This being heard by those that went away at 
first, they returned again, and these are called the Pattan 
Tulawar; but having originally come from different 
quarters, and of different tribes, the Pattan Tulawar still 
use different languages. Afterwards numbers of Tamuler 
came thither, and between the Tamuler Brahmans who 
came, and the Brahmanar who were already residing, 
there arose disputes about the burning of a dead 
body, &c. &c. But how they became Tamuler, and 
what the truth was, and how the Brahma Uat'ya which 
had been incurred was cleared from them, Iswar onlv 
knows. "* J 

As a general conclusion, therefore, we may say that 
the whole of India may be divided between two classes 
of language— the language of the intruding Arians, or 
Sanskritoid, in the north, and the language of a civilised 
race in the south of India, represented by its most culti- 
vated branch, the Tamil. Just as the greater and most 
civilised part of Europe may be divided between two 
distinct famihes of language, the Teutonic and the 
Romanesque. According to this division, the principal 
languages of India will be ranged as follows : 

Avian, Sanshitoid, or Northern Family. 

h Hl '" di - I- c Rangri Basha. f 1. g Sindhi. 
a Hindustani, or d Panjabi. h Marw£di. 

V Tdu ' e Multani. 2. Kashmiri. 

b Bit, Basha. / J^aki. 3. Bengali. 



* Mackenzie Collection, vol. ii, p. 83. 
f Malcolm's Central India, vol. ii. 



OP INDIA. 



249 



3. a Tirhuti. 4. a Kachi.* 6. Konkani. 

4. Gujar&i. 5. Marathi. 7. Urya. 

Turanian, Tamiloid, or Southern Family. 

1. Telugu, or Telinga. 3. Tamil. 5. Tulu. 

2. Karndtaka. 4. Malayalam. 6. Gondwani ? 

Speaking generally, the whole of Upper India, includ- 
ing the Panjab, from the Himalayan to the Yindhyan 
range, but exclusive of Bengal, may be said to be pos- 
sessed by one language, the Hindi. Nor is it only on 
the plains of Hindustan that it is to be found. On the 
southern slope of the Himalayas, in Kumaon and 
Gehrwal, Mr. Trail informs us the language is pure 
Hindi ;f and generally along the sub-Himalayan range as 
far as the Gogra river, the impure Hindi dialect intro- 
duced by the Gorkhas from the plains appears to be 
extirpating the vernacular Thibetan tongues of the 
aboriginal mountaineers.! Even beyond the limits I 
have mentioned, the genius of the language seems to 
prevail, as Mr. Masson found that with Hindi he could 
make himself intelligible throughout the whole of Kohis- 
tan. § It is not meant by the use of the word " Hindi " 
to denote a language of fixed characters, like French or 
Latin, or even like Bengali and Marathi ; the term is 
only used to comprehend under a common designation 
the various dialects of a language essentially one, but 
which has received no great cultivation in any of its 
forms. According to the Brahman pundits of Benares, 
" there are hundreds of dialects equally entitled to the 
name." || The Brij Basha (or Bhakha, as it is pro- 
nounced on the Ganges), and the Panjabi are the two 
most cultivated varieties of it, IT but the Panjabi passes 

* Kachi, or the language of Cutch 3 might, probably, have been 
better classed under Hindi. 

+ Official Reports on Kumaon, published by the orders of the 
Lieutenant-Governor. Agra : 1 848. 

% Mr. Hodgson, As. Res. vol. xvi. p. 415. 

§ Masson's Journey, vol. i. p. 220 ; Ibid. vol. ii. p. 277. 

|| Report of Bombay Board of Education, 1848, p. 5, 
Colebrooke in As. Res. vol. vii. p. 230. 



250 



ON THE LANGUAGES 



into Multani, which a good philologist has shown 
to be a corrupted form of Panjabi ; whilst Jataki 
again, further to the south, is a corrupted form of 
Multani,* and Sindhi and Hindi, in the opinion of an 
excellent Hindi scholar, are only provincial varieties, f 
feut Sindhi, according to Lieut. Burton, who has studied 
it carefully on the spot, is " directly derived from 
Sanskrit, yet is a perfectly distinct dialect."! When 
the Marathas extended their conquests into Hindustan, 
they found Hindi everywhere prevalent, from the limits 
of the desert to the frontiers of Bundelcund ; and, 
finding it different from their own tongue, they called it, 
contemptuously, Rangri Basha, quasi, barbarous jargon. § 
Sir John Malcolm extends the Bangri Bhakha as far west 
as the Indus, and east as far as the frontier of Bundelcund, 
where, according to Bitter, || the Bengali tongue begins ; 
but this is an error, for in Bundelcund, as in all the 
country to the Indus from the western frontier of Bengal, 
dialects of Hindi prevail. HT The Marwadi and other 
dialects of Rajputana are said to be little connected with 
one another, but it is clear that they are varieties of 
Hindi, introduced by the intruding Rajput races ; and, 
on travelling through Rajputana, it strikes the most cur- 
sory observer what a small element in the population the 
dominant Rajput constitutes. 

Hindi, according to Mr. Colebrooke, and the Seram- 
pore translators of the Bible, owes nine-tenths of its 
vocables to Sanskrit roots : when it is spoken by Musal- 
mans, and enriches itself from Persian or Arabic roots, 
it becomes Urdu or Hindustani, in which form Garcin de 
Tassy observes it is employed by all Hindu reformers, or 
religious innovators ; but this remark seems rather to 

* Lieut. Burton. Bombay Journal, vol. iii. p. 84. 
t James Prinsep. Beng. As. Jour. May, 1837. 
$ Burton's Sindh, and the traces inhabiting it, p. 69. London : 
1851. * 
§ Malcolm's Central India, vol. ii. p. 19]. 
j| Asien, vol. vi. p. 768. 
HI See Hamilton's Hindostan, vol. i. p. 218. 



OF INDIA. 



251 



apply to Hindi proper than to Hindustani. When Hindi 
is spoken by Hindus, and draws on Sanskrit for enrich- 
ment or embellishment, it more appropriately deserves 
and bears the name Hindi ; but the term is used so 
loosely all over India to denote the vernacular tongue ot 
the district, that it is not easy to attribute to it a very 
precise signification. 

Bengali, from its well-marked geographical limits to- 
wards the west, north, and east, according with the 
province of Bengal,— from its being the language of at 
least thirty million souls,— and from the cultivation 
which has been given to it, well deserves the name of a 
distinct language, though its relation to Sanskrit is, 
perhaps, not other than that of so-called Hindi. Accord- 
ing to Colebrooke* there are but few words m Bengali 
not derived from Sanskrit ; and the same writer observes 
of Tirhuti, on its north-eastern border, that it has great 
affinity with Bengali. It may, perhaps, be observed at 
once, that, of all the languages belonging to the Arian 
class, our present state of knowledge does not enable us 
to determine whether they are developments of some 
tongue, of which Sanskrit is the cultivated representative, 
and of which Magadhi or Pali, at the sera of As'oka and 
the introduction of Buddhism to Ceylon, was a spoken 
form or whether Sanskrit has been superinduced upon 
some aboriginal tongue, as it has been demonstrably, 
though in much smaller quantity, upon the Tamiloid 
languages of the south, and as French has been intro- 
duced into Anglo-Saxon. Certain it is, that m every 
Arian tongue, a considerable, and apparently primitive 
element is found, (in Gujarati it is reckoned at one- 
third of the whole language,) which is not traceable to 

Sanskrit. . 

On descending southwards, we find the Gujarati in a 
sufficiently compact and characteristic form to constitute 
it a language, and owing its unity of character, no doubt, 
like the Bengali, Urya, Marathi, Canarese, and Tamil, to 

* As. Res. vol. xxiii. p. 224. 



252 



ON THE LANGUAGES 



an early and powerful dynasty, extending over the 
country where it is spoken, and of which we have ample 
traces in history. The dialects of Kachi and Sindhi are 
quite intelligible to our Gujarati interpreters in the 
Supreme Court, but Kachi seems to be a transition dialect 
between Sindhi and Gujarati,* and the intelligibility of 
these languages is probably owing to the common relation 
of all of them to Hindi ; though, occasionally, inhabitants 
of those countries use a patois that is quite incomprehen- 
sible to a native of Gujarat. This, however, is no more 
than occurs amongst inhabitants of different provinces of 
Europe, such as Italy or France, where the language is 
but one. Gujarati is bounded by the Marwadi a little 
to the north of Deesa, to the north and east by the 
Hindi or Rangri Basha of Malcolm,t in Bajputana and 
Malwa respectively, and in the south it dove-tails with 
Marathi in the valleys of the Narbadda and Tapti, ending 
at Hdmp, on the former river, and running into Nandobdr 
on the latter. 

The Marathi, as I have before observed, extends 
further to the south than any other member of the 
northern family of languages ; and it has one remarkable 
peculiarity,— it is the only language on the west coast to 
which the natural barrier of the Western Ghats has 
opposed no obstacle to its diffusion on both sides of the 
range, the cause of which I apprehend to be that the 
Marathas were originally a race of mountaineers, situated 
on the crest of the Ghats, it is said in Bagldn, and culti- 
vating the fertile valleys, or Mdwals, running to the east, 
as weU as the eligible depths in the Konkan on their 
western border. Being, moreover, a martial race, the 
favourable isolated hills which present themselves for 
defence in the latter rugged region would further tempt 
them to descend the precipitous sides of the Saihddri 
range, and to occupy the Konkan. The country called 
Maharashtra, which is first mentioned in Indian history 

* See Lieut. Burton's Sindh, p. 69. 

f Malcolm's Central India, vol. ii. p. 191. 



OF INDIA. 



253 



in the Mahdivdnso, probably obtained its name, and 
received a distinctive langnage from the existence of a 
Maratha dynasty, at some period not recorded in history. 
But at a comparatively recent date, I think, it clearly 
appears from the inscriptions translated by Walter Elliot, 
that the Yddavas, who held Devagiri or Daulatabdd, 
A. D. 1294, when the Mussulmans first turned their arms 
against the south, were Marathas and not Bajputs.* 

The northern limits of Marathi on the sea-coast are to 
be found in the Kolwan hills, or country of the Koles, 
near the Portuguese settlement of Daman, and it extends 
above the Ghats in a north-easterly direction along the 
Sat pur a range, parallel to the Narbadda.f About Nan- 
dobdr, in the jungly valley of the Tapti, it intermingles 
with Gujarat i. To the eastward, its boundary has not 
been ascertained, but it is spoken throughout Berdr, and in 
the open part of the territories of JSfdgpur : arjd on the 
whole of its eastern border it abuts on the country and 
language of the Gonds. From the Ndgpur territories, 
Marathi trends to the south-west, " touching in advance 
nearly on Bijapwr and Shankashwr<r,"t and thence trends 
south-westerly to the coast at Sidashaghur, along the line 
marked out by Colonel Wilks and Mr. Walter Elliot as 
the western boundary of Canarese. From Daman, in the 
Northern Konkan, Marathi runs down the coast both below 
and above the Ghats to the neighbourhood of Goa, where 
it meets the language which Lassen, following his autho- 
rities Mackenzie and Ellis, calls Konkani,§ and which 
language runs, according to Mr. Walter Elliot, nearly as 
far as Mangalore,]j but the southern limits of this mixed 
dialect, however, I learn from native travellers, and from 
the German missionaries at Mangalore, is a village four 

* See W. Elliot, in Journ. Royal As. Soc. vol. iv. p. 28—30 ; and 
Brigcrs' Ferishta, vol. iii. 

t Dr. Wilson, in Oriental Christian Spectator, 1848. 
J Dr. Wilson, lit sup. 

§ Indische Alterthumsl'unde, vol. i. p. 360. 
|| Journ. of As. £oc. of Bengal, Nov. 1847. 



254 



ON THE LANGUAGES 



miles north of Upi, or Oodapee, near Coondapore, where 
Tulu, or the language of Canara, begins. 

This Konkani dialect, however, appears to be no other 
than Marathi, with a large infusion of Tulu and Canarese 
words, the former derived from the indigenous inhabi- 
tants of Tulava, or Canara, the latter from the long sub- 
jection of this part of the Konkan to Canarese dynasties 
above the Ghats. F. Buchanan found that at Carwar, 
fifty-five miles to the south of Goa, " the dialect of Kon- 
kan is used, but, from having been long subject to Beeja- 
pore, almost all the inhabitants can speak Marathi."* 
The fact; is undoubted ; but the reason given is wrong, as 
the vernacular language of Bijapur is Canarese, and not 
Marathi. Konkani being the mother tongue of many 
numerous classes in Bombay, — amongst others of the 
Shenvi Brahmans, — I requested Mr. Murphy, Chief In- 
terpreter of the Supreme Court, to examine the language 
for me, and I subjoin a very interesting note of his 
upon it.t 

The subject, however, requires a closer philological 
investigation than it has yet received, and I am informed 
by the Rev. H. Mogling, of Mangalore, that the Kon- 
kani-speaking Brahmans of that part of the coast, where 
the language is vernacular, consider it quite distinct from, 

* Cited in Hamilton, vol. ii. p. 262. 
*f* " An examination of the grammar of the Konkani proves it to be 
decidedly that of the Marathi language. The nouns arid verbs are 
inflected in the same manner, with some slight modifications in the 
details. A general characteristic which it shares with Gujarati and 
Marwari, is the adoption of o as the masculine termination, instead of 
the d, used in Hindi and Marathi .... The Konkani explains some 
of the difficulties of the Marathi : what are anomalies or defective in 
the latter are sometimes found normal and complete in the former. It 
bears the stamp of a peculiar Brahminical influence, many Sanskrit 
words being in common popular use for natural objects which are not 
so, as far as I know, in any other part of India. These are pronounced 
purely by the Shenvis, but by the common Christian population 
(natives of Goa) are corrupted. Thus the common terms for water, 
tree, and grass, are Sanskrit : pronounced by the Shenvis, udaJc, 
vriksh, trin ; by native Christians, udih, vuJch, tan." — Note by Mr. 
Murphy, 



OF INDIA. 



255 



though cognate with, Marathi, and that it has an equally- 
elaborate grammar of its own. The limits extend from 
Goa below the Ghats, to the village before mentioned, 
north of Upi. 

From this part of the coast in Northern Canara, a 
diagonal line, running in a north-east direction towards 
Beder, marks the boundary between Marathi and Cana- 
rese,* — of the latter, at least, above the Ghats. In the 
neighbourhood of Beder the three languages of the Bala 
Ghat or plateau — Telinga, Marathi, and Canarese — are 
said to meet.f 

The language of Orissa is the last member of the Arian 
or Hindi family which requires to be mentioned. The 
original site of the Or, or Odra tribe appears to have had 
very narrow limits, viz., along the coast-line from the 
Basihulia river, near Gdnjdm, northwards to the Bans 
Xans river, near Soro, in latitude 21° 10' ; but in the 
process of migration and conquest under the Kesdri, and 
more especially under the Gang a Vansa line, the limits of 
Orissa (Or-desa) were extended to Midnapore and Hooghly 
on the north, and to Rajahmundry on the Godavery to 
the south. 

Orissa is backed to the westward by a range of granite 
hills, from 300 to 2000 feet high, but attaining higher 
elevations in the wild and little explored regions of 
Gondwana, further west. At the foot of these hills, the 
Konkan, or plain between them and the sea, is divided 
into two distinct portions. On the first, beds of laterite 
of considerable depth run out in easy undulations to the 
plains, on which not a stone of the size of a pebble is to 
be found between the termination of the laterite and the 
ocean. This district is, again, bounded by a marshy 
woodland tract along the sea-shore, varying in breadth 
from five to twenty miles, and resembling the Simderbuns 
of the Ganges in its innumerable winding streams, 

* Colonel Mackenzie, in As. Res. vol. vii. ; W. Elliot, in Journ. 
of Royal As. Soc. vol. iv. p. 30. 

f Colonel Wilks' Historical Researches in Mysore. 



256 



ON THE LANGUAGES 



swamps, tigers, and alligators. It is on the other com- 
paratively fertile lands of the central district called the 
Mogalhandi that the civilisation and aggrandisement of 
the Urya race has developed itself. 

The language, according to Mr. Stirling, "is a tolerably 
pure Basha (dialect) of Bengali."* In the direction of 
Bengal it follows the coast-line as far as the Hijellee and 
Tumlook divisions on the Hooghly. On the western side 
of the Midnapore district it intermingles with Bengali, 
near the river Subanrekha. To the westward, the Gond 
and Urya languages pass into each other ; the Rajah of 
Sonnapur informing Mr. Stirling that half his people 
spoke the one language, half the other, t 

About Gdnjdm, on the coast, the first traces of Telinga 
occur. The Urya still prevails, however, forty-five miles 
south of Gdnjdm on the lowlands of the sea-shore, 
beyond which Telinga begins to predominate ; at Cicacole 
the latter is the prevailing dialect, and in Vizagapatam 
Telinga only is spoken in the open country, though 
Urya on the mountains runs further down to the 
south. J 

Of the Gond language, Professor Lassen, writing in 
1843, says that we know absolutely nothing. § Captain 
Blunt, whose interesting journey in 1795, from Benares 
to Rajahmundry, gives us almost all the information we 
possess of many parts of the interior, observes of the 
language, that it differs wholly from all its neighbours, 
Telinga, Marathi, Urya ;|| but as Hitter observes, this is 
the remark of a mere traveller, not a philologist. The 
jet blackness attributed to many of the tribes, and 
pointed out both by Stirling and Blunt, is another 
example out of many to be found of the dark colour of 
the aborigines of India. Since Lassen wrote, however, 

* Account of Orissa. As. Res. vol. xv. »f« Ibid. 

'J Stirling. As. Res. vol. xv. p. 206. 
§ Indische Alterthumslcunde, vol. i. p. 375. 

|| Narrative of a Too. from Chunarghur to Yertnagoodum, &c. 
As. Res. vol. vii. p. 57. 



OF INDIA. 



257 



the collation of the vocabulary of the Gonds with the 
languages of the south would seem to leave little doubt 
that we may safely classify Gondi as a member of the 
Tamiloid family. # 

At present, however, the Gondwana highlands and 
jungles comprise such a large district of unexplored 
country, that they form quite an oasis in our maps ; and 
as the Bengali, Marathi, Urya, and Telinga languages all 
abut upon them, it is impossible to trace their respective 
boundary-lines with accuracy. 

In dismissing the languages of the North, we may 
observe that their distribution and acquisition of distinc- 
tive characters appear to be owing to two causes — first, 
the geological features of the country over which they 
are spread ; second, the accident of independent and 
powerful dynasties erecting themselves in certain localities. 
Thus, if the Arian race entered India at the north-west 
or north, and settled themselves, as all tradition indicates, 
in the Panjab, and towards the valley of the Ganges, the 
wide plains of Hindustan, over which a buggy may be 
driven in the dry season for a thousand miles iu every 
direction without a made road, would present no obstacle 
whatever to civilised races such as Alexander encountered, 
and Megasthenes describes, who were tending to diffuse 
their civilisation and their language. The Arian con- 
queror or adventurer, whichever he might be, in descend- 
ing to the south, would find physical peculiarities in the 
country pitched upon that would either wed him to the 
spot, or would offer obstacles to a speedy return. Thus, 
those who surmounted the barren heights separating 
Bahar from Bengal, would feel too well pleased with the 
alluvial richness of the well-watered plains below them, 
to seek to retrace their steps ; and a favourable combina- 
tion of circumstances would soon raise Gaur into a 
kingdom, and Bengali into a national tongue. The same 

* See paper by Mr. Walter Elliot, in Journ. of As. Soc, of Bengal, 
Nov. 1847. Ditto by Mr. Hodgson, on Seven Languages of Tribes in 
Central India. Ibid. Dec. 1848. 

S 



258 



ON THE LANGUAGES 



train of circumstances operating on those who reached 
the fat lands of Gujarat, after quitting dreary Marwar, 
and shaking off the dust of its western desert, would 
soon induce them to convert their tents into houses ; and 
the early existence of a Gujarati kingdom fully accounts 
for the growth and distribution of its language. On the 
other hand, those who ascended the plateau of Bundel- 
cund, or penetrated the fastnesses of Raj pu tana, might 
have been sufficiently pleased with the easy dominion 
they obtained over the wild indigenous Bhils and Meinas, 
to induce them to abandon the more fertile plains below ; 
but as such localities gave no opportunity for extended 
empire, the Hindi they brought with them never grew 
up into a distinct language, and is only distinguishable as 
a patois from the Hindi of the plains. Whether the 
Bhils of Bdjputdna and of the Satpura range, the Kolis* 
of the Western Ghats, and other hill tribes in this 
Presidency, have retained any traces of an aboriginal 
language, I have never been able to ascertain ; but the 
fact is stated broadly by Sir John Malcolm, and it is not 
unlikely to be correct. 

The Marathas, like the Gujars, were probably able, as 
I have suggested, to establish an extensive empire at 
an early period, although we have no such authentic 
accounts of it as we have of the dynasty established at 
Anhalwdra Patan, in Gujarat ; but it is not improbable 
that the city Tdgara, mentioned in the Periplus, was a 
Maratha capital. Now, as these two dynasties came 
into contact in the Gulf of Cambay, it is instructive to 
observe the point at which the Gujarati and Marathi 
languages divide. On looking at the map, it is difficult 
to understand why Gujarat should turn the corner of the 
Gulf of Cambay, or, at all events, why it should descend 

* The Ramusis of the Bombay Ghats have immigrated from Telin- 
gana within a recent period, and though they have adopted Marathi, 
they preserve a few terms of their original Telinga for purposes of 
crime, &c. See Captain Mackintosh's Account of the Ramoosies. 
Bombay, 1833. 



i 



OF INDIA. 



259 



the coast, and cross the rivers Narbadda and Tapti. 
But, on visiting the country, the physical features of 
the land, and the characters of the two races, explain 
the phenomenon at once. The Crujars are excellent 
cultivators,* and the country they inhabit is a fine 
plain of alluvial loam, in many parts forty feet deep, 
and though composed of granites from the* Aravalli 
range, quartz from the Mewar hills, and sandstone and 
trap from the Malwa plateau, so worn down in the whole 
alluvium by the gradual descent from the highlands, 
that, as in the Orissan Mogalhandi, not a pebble is left 
in the country to scare a crow withal. The Marathas, 
on the other hand, are essentially mountaineers, herdsmen, 
and soldiers, but bad farmers. As, then, the black soil 
of Gujarat descends the coast as far as Daman to the 
foot of the Kolwan Hills, where Kole Rajahs still hold 
their rustic court, the Gujars naturally follow the course 
of the soil they knew so well how to till, whilst the 
Marathas clung to their more congenial hills. 

If we now approach the Tamiloid languages of the 
south, we shall find that similar geological causes and 
dynastic influences have governed their distribution. 

On taking up the point at the east coast, where we left 
the Urya-speaking races extending themselves to the 
southwards, the Telinga language begins somewhere 
about Gdnj&m, though Urya seems extending itself 
southwards. At Vizagapatam, which is 120 miles further 
south, Mr. Stirling states that Telinga is exclusively 
spoken. Formerly the limits of the language along the 
coast appear to have extended further to the north, and in 
the south they reach to the neighbourhood of the Pulicat 
lake, near Madras. On this coast two Telinga monarchies 

* The race are no longer known by name in Gujarat; but they are 
well known as the best cultivators in the N. TV". Provinces. See ad 
vocem that most instructive work for Indian customs — Sir Henry 
Elliot's Glossary of Indian Terms ; and the field of Gujarat, on which 
the last battle with the Seikhs was fought, points out the wide diffusion 
of the race. 

s 2 



260 



ON THE LANGUAGES 



formerly existed, the Andhra and the Kalinga,* both, 
apparently, enterprising races, and seafaring people, 
although pious Hindus. The Hindu conqueror of Ceylon, 
(Vijaya Wala, the Conqueror,) who about 500 years b. c. 
invaded the island, probably proceeded from this part of 
the coast,t as the Mahawanso makes mention of an 
Andhra princess, who, after living in the jungles of 
Lada (?) intermarried with a lion, (Singh,) and was ulti- 
mately the grandmother of Vijaya. The Kalinga dynasty 
appears subsequently to have gained great possessions on 
the plateau above the Ghats, and, at the period of the 
Mahomedan conquest, Warangol, seventy miles N.E. of 
Hydrabad, was considered the capital of what the Mus- 
sulmans call Telingana. A great portion of the Nizam's 
dominions, the districts of Cuddapah and Bellary, and 
the coast-line I have before described, are occupied by 
Telugu-speaking people. J Towards the lower part of 
the course of the Godavery, Captain Blunt found that 
river to be the boundary-line between the Gond and 
Telinga languages. § 

The Tamil language, according to Hamilton, || is 
"principally spoken in the tract from the south of 
Telingana to Cape Comorin, and from the Coast of Coro- 
mandel to the great range of hills, including great part 
of the Baramahal, Salem, and the country to Coimba- 
tore." This, however, is a very indefinite description, 
as it does not appear whether he means the eastern or 
western hills ; and from Colonel Mackenzie, and Mr. 
Elliot, who are the two best authorities on Canarese, the 
latter language appears to be well rooted in Coimbatore. 
Tamil was the language of three Hindu dynasties of 
whom we have records. The Cholas of Tanjore and Com- 
buconam, who were settled on or near the Caveri and 

* Walter Elliot, in Journ. of Royal As. Soc. vol. iv. 
=f Lassen, however, thinks that Vijaya and his 700 followers 
proceeded from Gujarat. Indische Alterthumshunde, vol. i. p. 199. 
X Hamilton, vol. ii. p. 121. § As. Res. vol. vii. p. 57. 

|| Hamilton's Hindustan, vol. ii. p. 248. 



OF INDIA. 



261 



Coleroon rivers, and who gave their name to the Coro- 
niandel, or Cholarnandel Coast * the Pandyans, whose 
capital is now occupied by the inhabitants of Madura, 
and the Cherans, who ruled at Kerala on the Malabar 
Coast. According to Mr. Taylor, Tamil was cultivated m 
its greatest purity in the ancient Pandyan kingdom, and 
in the opinion of that very competent judge, "the result 
of a process, not very dissimilar to that which the early 
Saxon has undergone, [viz., copious infusions from a 
foreign tongue,] is to render the Tamil language, like our 
native English, one of the most copious, refined, and 
polished languages spoken by man." f The examination 
of a good map will explain the easy diffusion of Tamil 
over the rich delta of the Caveri, and over the lowlands 
at the foot of the peninsula as far as the spring of the 
stupendous Western Ghats that end at Cape Comonn, 
and even up to their very summit on the Ani-Malaya 
range ; and the gradual ascent of the Eastern Ghats 
from the Coromandel Coast explains readily how the 
Tamil-speaking down-easters and conquerors from that 
coast surmounted the plateau, where, like their northern 
neighbours of Kcdinga, they have permanently implanted 
both their race and language. The Tamulians are a 
pushing, enterprising race, and as will be seen presently, 
the Tamil language appears to be extirpating Malayalam. 
The two languages dovetail without coalescing in the 
lowlands at the great gap of the Western Ghats, and 
Tamil is also found to the westward of Cape Comorin, 
on the coast, for example, at Travancore, the ancient 
capital of the Rajahs. 

The limits of the Canarese are the most distmct m 
geological relations of any we have yet spoken of. It is 
essentially a plateau language. The ancient Hindu term 
Karndtaka comprehended all the high table-land in the 

* Paolini, the Carmelite, explains Chola-mandala to mean the 
middle country ; but most scholars interpret it the country of the 
Cholas. 

f Preface to Rottler s Tamil Dictionary. 



262 



ON THE LANGUAGES 



south of India above the Eastern and Western Ghats, 
but, by a strange fatality, as Hamilton observes,* this 
country has not only lost its proper designation, but the 
latter has been transferred to the Carnatic, on one coast, 
and to Canara on the other, in neither of which is the 
Canarese language strictly vernacular. So, also, the 
Carnatic dynasties, so far as we know from history, or 
rather from inscriptions, never held sway below the 
Ghats. Hamilton's general description of its limits seems 
correct enough : " The common Canara Karnataca cha- 
racter and language are used by the natives of those 
countries from Coimbatore, north to Balky, near Beeder, 
and within the parallel of the Eastern Ghats to the West- 
ern. " f Mr. W. Elliot, who was for some years stationed at 
Dharwar, draws its boundary-line W. and K by a " line 
from Sadashagur on the Malabar Coast to the westward 
of Dharwar, Belgaum, and Hukairi, through Kagal and 
Kurandwar, passing between Kelingaon and Pandegaon, 
through Brahmapuri on the Bhima, and Sholapur, and 
thence east to the neighbourhood of Bider. From Sada- 
shagur, following the southern boundary of Sunda to the 
top of the Western Ghats, it comprehends the whole of 
Mysore as (far as) Coimbatur, and the line of Eastern 
Ghats — including much of the Chola and JBeldla king- 
doms, and even Dwara Samudra, the capital of the 
latter, which was never captured by the Chaluktjas " (i. e. 
the Carnatic dynasty of Kalyani). J I have before 
shown, however, that Canarese extends much further to 
the north than Mr. Elliot's boundary indicates : it was 
the language of business of the Adil-shahy dynasty at 
Bijapur, who introduced it, to the exclusion of the court 
language,^Persian ; § and throughout the whole of the 
Belgaum and Dharwar collectorates it is the verna- 
cular language, although, strangely enough, on the esta- 
blishment of schools by the Bombay Government in that 

* Hindustan, vol. ii. p. 247. f Ibid. 

t Journ. Royal As. Soc. vol. iv. pp. 3, 4. 
§ Briggs' Ferishta, vol. iii. 



OF INDIA. 



263 



district in 1840, the Canarese population stoutly resisted 
instruction being conveyed to their children m then: 
mother-tongue, and pleaded for Marathi * In the 
south, also, towards Coimbatore, I apprehend that lamil 
dovetails intricately with Canarese, as Marathi does m 
the north, and Telinga in the north-east. I find m a 
report of the Collector of Coimbatore to the Madras 
Government, that there are 846 schools in that col- 
lectorate, << in which the children are taught Tamil, 
Teloogoo, Hindivee, (Canarese,) and other (?) native 

languages." t T , ,., ,, , 

Of the Malayalam and Tulu languages I have little *> 
say, except that they each of them appear to be m a 
course of gradual extinction. They are essentially Kon- 
hany languages, if I may be permitted the use of such a 
word (much wanted in geography) to describe a country 
lying at the foot of a chain of mountains running parallel 
to the sea, and intercepted between the two, and ot 
which the Bombay Konkan is a good type. Malayalam 
extends from Cape Comorin to the Chandagin river, or, 
more strictly, perhaps, to Nileshwar (Nileswara) where a 
Nair Rajah, conquered by Hyder, formerly ruled + We 
have seen that a rude Tamil dialect is spoken on the tops 
of the Western Ghats, from the great gap to Cape 
Comorin; and the language seems gaining upon and 
extirpating Malayalam, both to the north and south. 
For Tamil, advancing from the west through that singular 

* This feeling might be accounted for amongst those who were 
training their sons for government offices, as Marathi, under the 
Peshwa g , was the language of public business; but it was altered by 
the British Government in 1836 to Canarese : the feeling, howeve., 
was equally strong amongst the Lingayat traders, who are very 
numerous in those parts. Thus, the Supermtendent of Spools, 
Assistant Professor BAl Shdstri, reported, m 1845, of a school neat 
BeVaum •— « Several of the Lingayat children, who understand not a 
worn of Marathi, would yet insist upon learning nothing but reading 
and writing that language." Much evidence on the subject is to be 
found in the Reports of the Board of Education. 
+ Madras Almanac for 1834, Appendix, p. 24. 
J F. Buchanan's Mysore, vol. iii. p. 12. 



264 



ON THE LANGUAGES 



break in the mountains, having no physical obstacles to 
encounter, is found pushing its way onward to the west 
of Palghat ; and Palghat itself is more a Tamil than a 
Malayalam town. The Malayali is said naturally to 
shrink from contact with foreigners,— even from people 
of his own caste,— whilst the Tamulian is the least 
scrupulous of all Hindus. Hence the Malayali retreats 
from the great roads, from cities and. bazars, as eagerly as 
the Tamil flocks to them ; and the former race are to be 
found isolated with their families in their high-walled 
parambus, even in parts where the lines and centres of 
communication are entirely occupied by their more enter- 
prising eastern neighbours.* 

Tulu is the language spoken in the very limited 
district extending from the northern Hmits of Malayalam 
at the Mleswara river, lat. 12° 10' N. 9 to the Bhahdvara 
river, four miles north of Upi, 13° 30'. It is broken in 
upon by many languages, both north and south, and 
appears to be in a state of progressive decay. To the 
humbler classes at Mangalore, and within the limits 
described, the German missionaries find it is the only 
language in which they can make themselves intelligible, 
though they preach in Canarese to the upper classes ; and 
it ascends, as we have seen, in an archaic form, to the 
top of the mountains in Coorg, 6000 feet high. It is 
stated, also, that in many parts of Canara Canarese is 
vernacular ;f and the Rev. H. Mogling, who, with his 
brethren of the Basle Mission, has paid much attention 
to this language, informs me that it may be considered 
vernacular from Cunderpore (Kundapura) to Honore 
(Honavera), where Konkani begins. But I am inclined 
to doubt whether Canarese is strictly vernacular anywhere 
along the coast, except amongst immigrants. It is the 
mother-tongue, for example, of the Saiga Brahmans, 
whose principal station is at Kalydnapura, a village four 
miles north of Upi, although by race they belong to the 

* MSS. information from German Missionaries, 
t Paolini Yiaggio alie Indie Orientali, p. 262. 



OF INDIA. 



265 



northern, or Gaw Brahmans ; and so long back as 1803, 
F. Buchanan found that all natives of rank spoke it, 
from the country having been subjected for centuries to 
princes above the Ghats.* Canarese is now, also, the 
language of the British government in this province, and, 
therefore, a still greater impetus is given to its diffusion, 
so that it may be anticipated it will become vernacular at 
no very distant day. 

In taking a parting glance at the Malabar Coast, — the 
Pirate Coast — the Pepper Coast, as it has been alter- 
nately called, — the country of the Zamorin — of the 
exploits of Vascode Gama, and of the even more heroic 
efforts of St. Francis Xavier, — a country where the 
richest gifts of nature spontaneously present themselves, 
and primeval forests, tenanted by wild elephants, and 
almost equally wild races of men, still cumber the earth, 
— a land of singular physical formation, and peopled by 
not less singular races, — Nairs, Bunts, Moplahs, Kolis, 
White Jews, Xestorian Christians, — all affording so many 
points of European interest, — we may note, as pertinent 
to the present inquiry, that from the Gulf of Cambay to 
Cape Comorin, in the narrow strip between the mountains 
and the sea, the following languages are vernacular ; — 
Gujarat i, Marathi, Hindustani (amongst the Konkani 
Musahnans), Konkani, Canarese, Tulu, Malayalam, and 
Tamil. So much influence on language has the physical 
face of a country. 

* Mysore, vol. iii. p. 103. 



266 



ON A LINGUA FRANCA 



CHAPTER XLI. 

— 

N THE DEMAND FOR A LINGUA FRANCA IN INDIA ; ADVANTAGES 
OF ENGLISH FOR THE PURPOSE. 

Afteb, having thus taken what I trust will appear a 
sufficiently accurate view of the lingual state of British 
India, the question naturally arises whether anything 
can be done, by the exertion of human forethought and 
prevision, to facilitate a closer intercourse, and greater 
diffusion of ideas, amongst our Indian fellow-subjects, 
who are now immured in so many isolated and distinct 
language-groups. To solve this problem, it is necessary 
to consult, carefully, the page of history ; and, fortunately, 
the vicissitudes of race and of empire which have occurred 
in Europe during the last two thousand years, and the 
accurate records we possess of the events of this period, 
enable us to apply our experience to the field of Asia with 
advantage. 

On a cursory view, nothing would appear more immu- 
table than language ; and some of the phenomena con- 
nected with the subject which first strike the eye would 
seem to warrant the same conclusion. The mother- 
tongue, learnt, not taught, in early infancy, though 
subject, like a plant, to the laws of growth and sponta- 
neous development, would seem, in its staple, to be 
proof against any invasion from without, either by a 
foreign stranger, or even by a neighbour. We may see 
in this Presidency, for example, Canarese and Marathi 
villages lying grouped together on the same plain, and 
co-existing for a thousand, perhaps thousands of years, 
yet without any considerable intermixture of their 
languages. Each village, strong in its own organisation, 



IN INDIA. 



267 



with its three estates of hereditary officers, established 
clergy, and faithful commons, wants nothing from its 
neighbour ; and the only point of communication on 
which they ever need to meet, is on some grazing-ground 
adjoining their common border, which, so far from 
bringing them into amicable intercourse, may give birth to 
differences, lasting, like a German lawsuit, for hundreds 
of years. So, also, in the Swiss villages, spoken of by 
the historian of Switzerland, where the French and 
German races meet, if the stock of each is sufficiently 
large to enable the social business of life to go on— the 
marrying and giving in marriage, the eating and drinking, 
the lessons of the school and the ministrations at the 
altar — without dependence on the other, then the barriers 
interposed by different tongues — the small differences, 
which in small minds and small places create mutual 
repugnance — keep the languages and the races distinct 
for countless generations. But if any cause, either poli- 
tical or commercial, occur to throw adjoining nations or 
races into a state of fusion, it is remarkable to observe 
how speedily an instrument of intercourse springs up, 
and what great and rapid changes of language ensue. 
Frequently, by a mere spontaneous movement or tacit 
convention, nations with different tongues, who have 
common interests to discuss, seize on some one language, 
which becomes the medium of intercourse, and is subse- 
quently employed by many different races. Thus, the 
language spoken by the Genoese and Venetian traders, 
when they were seeking the commerce of the East in the 
ports of the Levant and the Black Sea, was soon learnt 
by the Asiatic inhabitants of those countries ; and other 
European merchants speedily adopting the tongue of their 
commercial rivals, a language of the Franks, or lingua 
Franca, arose, which Asiatics and Europeans both made 
themselves masters of, and which continues to this clay. 
Hindustani, as spoken in Bombay amongst Persian, 
Marathi, Gujarati, and other inhabitants of the island, 
with distinct mother-tongues, is another example. The 



268 



ON A LINGUA FRANCA 



use of Malay among the many hundred languages of the 
Indian Archipelago, where, we are told by a quaint old 
voyager, it is " epidemick,"* is a still more striking 
instance of the same kind. 

But it has been by the direct action of government that 
the more remarkable changes in the languages of different 
nations have been effected. The historian Niebuhr, in 
commenting on the rapid process by which the Etruscans 
succeeded in imposing their language on the inhabitants 
of ancient Italy, which was then cut up into more 
distinct tongues than those now spoken in the peninsula 
of India, supplies a number of parallel cases from his 
historical stores, and the passage is worth transcribing : — 

" Under the rule of a conquering nation which imposes 
a heavy yoke on the conquered, the language of the 
latter frequently becomes extinct : in Asia and many 
other countries, it was the practice to forbid the use of 
the vernacular tongue, in order to prevent treachery. 
The Moors were, in many respects, mild rulers in Spain, 
and the country nourished under them ; but in Andalusia, 
one of their kings forbade the Christians to use the Latin 
language, under penalty of death ; the consequence of 
which was, that a hundred years later not a trace of it 
occurs. The whole Christian population of Cassarea 
spoke Greek down to the eighteenth century, when a 
Pasha prohibited it, and, after the lapse of thirty or forty 
years, when my father visited the place, not one of the 
inhabitants understood Greek. When the Normans 
conquered Sicily, the only languages spoken in the 
island were Greek and Arabic, and the laws were written 
in Greek as late as the time of Frederic II. , but after- 
wards it disappears all at once. The same thing happens 
in Terra di Leca and Terra di Otranto, where after- 
wards the names were Italian, while the language of 
common life remained Greek until two hundred years 
ago, in the fifteenth century, it died away. In Pome- 
rania and Mecklenburg, the Wendic language disappeared 



* Herbert's Travels, p. 366. 



IN INDIA. 



269 



within a few generations, and that without an immigra- 
tion of Germans, but merely because the princes 
were partial to the German language : the conquerors 
of Brandenburg forbade the use of Wendic under 
penalty of death, and in a short time nothing was 
spoken but low German. The Etruscans had quite an 
aristocratic constitution, and lived in the midst of a 
large subject country ; under such circumstances it must 
have been of great importance to them to make their 
subjects adopt the Etruscan language."* 

But the subsequent success of the Romans in supplant- 
ing Etruscan, and fixing the Latin language deep in the 
soil, not only of Italy, but of Spain and France, is a 
more remarkable case than any recorded by Mebuhr, and 
deserves, perhaps, a closer attention by scholars than 
has yet been given to it. Take, for example, the case 
of France : — At the time of Csesar's conquest, the lan- 
guage was Gaelic, spoken in three different dialects, t 
and the country that was able to hold that great general 
at bay for nine years must have been tolerably thickly 
peopled. How, then, was the Celtic tongue so thoroughly 
extirpated ? There is no appearance that the Romans 
colonised France in any great numbers, or that there 
was any temptation offered to them to settle. The 
question becomes more difficult to answer when we 
recollect the subsequent immigration and conquests of 
the Franks and other German races. Meyer assures us, 
(though it appears to me doubtful as to any but the 
dominant race,) that up to the end of the eighth century, 
" il est certain que pendant tout ce temps et un bien 
plus long encore, le commun de la nation ne parlait 
qu'une langue d'origine tudesque. "J Dr. Young, also, 

* Lectures on the History of Rome, translated by Schmitz. 
London: 1848. 

+ Sir James Stephen's Lectures on the History of France. 
London: 1852. 

X Institutions Judiciaires de l'Europe, vol. i. p. 293. Notwith- 
standing the high authority due to M. Meyer, this statement is very 
doubtful. According to Sismondi (Histoire des Frangais, i. 52), the 



270 



ON A LINGUA FRANCA 



states that the inhabitants spoke- Gaelic till the sixth or 
seventh century, when it was superseded by Rustic 
Roman. * Here, then, if Meyer is correct, we have the 
bulk of the nations changing their language from Celtic 
to Teutonic, and from the latter to that modification of 
the Roman which subsequently became French ; but 
certainly the change from Gaelic to French was uni- 
versal. 

Some authorities, quoted by Michelet,f would seem to 
show that it was an established principle of policy with 
those great masters of political government, the Romans, 
to introduce their language whenever they could, as an 
instrument of police. St. Augustine states, that the 
" Imperial City" took pains to impose her language as 
well as her authority on her conquered dependencies, for 
the sake of good order (per pacem societatis). J The Roman 
Digest laid down expressly that the judges of the empire 
were to deliver their decrees in Latin, § and Valerius 
Maximus points out both the fine statesmanlike policy 
which dictated these ordinances, and the steady Roman 
consistency (magna perseverantia) with which they were 
adhered to. It does not seem, therefore, very hazardous 

three Celtic dialects spoken in the time of Caesar had given way to 
Latin, by the fourth century after Christ ; and, although the conquests 
of the Franks carried a Teutonic language all over France, and it 
became the language of the army and of business, so that all men in 
office, whose mother-tongue was Latin, were compelled to learn it 
(Sismondi, iii. 58), still, the small number of Frankish nobles amongst 
whom the territories of France were divided, and who in numbers 
have been compared to English squires of the present day, forbids us to 
believe that the " bulk of the people " ever spoke a Teutonic dialect. 
Indeed, we know that Charlemagne, whose mother-tongue was German, 
used to avoid Paris as a residence, expressly because the language was 
the to him unintelligible patois of Latin, subsequently to become 
French. And it is remarkable how very slight an impression the 
German language has made upon the French, although the Franks in 
France were more numerous than the Normans in England. 

* Encyclopaedia Britannica, Art. Language. 

+ Histoire de France, vol. i. p. 135. 

t De Civ. Dei, lib. xix. c. 7. 

§ Dig. xlii. i. 48 : Decreta aprcetoribus Latine interponi debent. 



IN INDIA. 



271 



to attribute the existence of the French, Spanish, and 
Italian languages, in their respective countries, to the 
direct institutions of Roman policy, operating at a long 
period after the original impulse given by government. 

Another example of the influence of the governing 
authorities upon the language of the people may be 
taken from England. I will pass over the supplanting of 
Celtic by the tongue of the Anglo-Saxons, although that, 
also, is a very remarkable fact, and not at all to be 
explained by the usual hypothesis put forward. But on 
looking at the language of England from the date of the 
Norman Conquest, it would appear that, during the 
first three centuries there were many periods when it 
seemed quite uncertain whether Anglo-Saxon or Norman 
French would become the language of the country. So 
late as the end of the fourteenth century, the latter was 
the language of the court, of the nobility — of every one 
who possessed or sought either power or place. An old 
monkish writer cited by Thierry* avers that even 
peasants, in order to appear more respectable (that con- 
ventional respectability so dearly cherished by the Eng- 
lish race), affected to talk French with all their might 
and main (omni nisu) ; and many circumstances seemed 
favourable for the introduction of the French language 
during this epoch. The facility of that language to 
diffuse itself is seen by the readiness with which the 
Normans abandoned their mother-tongue in so short a 
period as fifty years after they settled in France, f and, 
further, in its gradual extension over many countries on 
the French border where tongues of German origin for- 
merly prevailed. But in England other causes were at 
hand to render its extension more easy. The numerous 

* Conquete de l'Angleterre, vol. iv. p. 371, 4me ed. 
^ Within one century of the establishment of the Normans in 
France, the Danish language had become extinct. " A Rouen meme, 
et dans le palais des successeurs de Rou, on ne parlait d'autre langue 
an commencement du onzieme siecle, que la langue romane ou 
franchise." Thierry, Hist, du Conquete de l'Angleterre, vol. i. p. 209. 



272 



ON A LINGUA FRANCA 



Teutonic races who had invaded England — the Angles, 
Saxons, Jutes, Picts, <fec, — had all dialects — some 
distinct languages of their own : with all these was 
incorporated the Celtic tongue of the original occupiers 
of the soil ; and the result was such a diversity of 
speech throughout the realm, that it was very difficult 
for the inhabitant of one province to understand the 
dialect of another. Chaucer, notwithstanding his bold 
and patriotic attempt to address his countrymen in 
English, seems to have been apprehensive that his volume 
would not be understood out of London, for he thus 
apostrophises it : — 

" Read where so thou be or els sung, 
That thou beest understood God 1 beseech." 

Happily, the Teutonic element has maintained its 
supremacy in the language of England, but the influence 
and, I may add, beneficial influence, of the Norman 
dynasty, over the speech of their subjects, may be seen 
in this, that French still constitutes one-sixth part of the 
language of the Anglo-Saxon race. 

But the most remarkable example in history of the 
direct agency of government in introducing a common 
tongue as an instrument of civilisation, is furnished from 
South America. Mr. Prescott, in relating the policy of 
the Incas, writes as follows : — 

"Another expedient was of a bolder and more original 
character. This was nothing less than to revolutionise 
the language of the country. South America, like North, 
was broken up into a great variety of dialects, or rather 
languages, having little affinity with one another. This cir- 
cumstance occasioned great embarrassment to the govern- 
ment in the administration of the different provinces, 
with whose idioms they were unacquainted. It was 
determined, therefore, to substitute one universal lan- 
guage — the Quichua — the language of the court, the 
capital, and the surrounding country, — the richest and 
most comprehensive of the South American dialects. 



IN INDIA. 



273 



Teachers were provided in the towns and villages through- 
out the land, who were to give instruction to all, even 
the humblest classes ; and it was intimated at the same 
time, that no one should be raised to any office of dignity 
or profit who was unacquainted with this tongue. The 
Guracas, and other chiefs, who attended at the capital, 
became familiar with this dialect in their intercourse with 
the court, and, on their return home, set the example of 
conversing in it among themselves. 

" This example was imitated by their followers, and the 
Quichua gradually became the language of elegance and 
fashion, in the same manner as the Norman French was 
affected by all those who aspired to any consideration in 
England after the conquest. By this means, while each 
province retained its peculiar tongue, a beautiful medium 
of communication was introduced, which enabled the 
inhabitants of one part of the country to hold intercourse 
with every other, and the Inca and his deputies to com- 
municate with all. This was the state of things on the 
arrival of the Spaniards. It must be admitted, that 
history furnishes few examples of more absolute authority 
than such a revolution in the language of an empire, at 
the bidding of a master." * 

It was on considerations such as I have stated above, 
but the grounds of which I have now set forth in detail, 
that I ventured some years ago to throw out the following 
suggestion : — cc It is obvious that India is greatly in need 
of a lingua franca, such as French affords in Europe, 
Italian in the Levant, and Malay amongst the hundreds 
of different languages of the Indian Archipelago, f Hin- 
dustani supplies the office in many parts of India to the 
northward of a diagonal line between Bombay and the 
Bay of Bengal, but even there imperfectly, as we find 
the Urdu publications of the north-west almost wholly 
unintelligible in our Hindustani schools of Bombay ; and 
in the south of India a language of a wholly different 

* Prescott's Conquest of Peru, vol. i. p. 73. 
f See W. Von Humboldt's work on the Kawi language of Java. 

T 



ON A LINGUA FRANCA 



family, the Tamil, supplies the place of Hindustani. 
The English language, therefore, with its uniform written 
and printed character, and its rich and cheap literature, 
might gradually assume the beneficial office of a language 
of intercommunication between different nations, such as 
we have seen has sprung up spontaneously in divers parts 
of the world."* 

The spontaneous movement in favour of English, which 
I there alluded to, may even now be seen to be in opera- 
tion in various parts of India. It will be familiar to 
most of those who hear me, that the natives of Bombay 
who are acquainted with English, rarely communicate 
with one another in writing except in that language. 
The defective nature of the native cursive character, the 
mod or mor of the Marathi — indeed of most native 
writing, in which the tendency to leave out vowel-points 
is so general, f leads, no doubt from the dictates of con- 
venience, to the employment of the more distinct and 
uniform English character. But, for speaking also, if an 
educated native at the present day arrives from Upper 
India, from Bengal, or from Madras, there is no language 
in which he can make himself so readily intelligible to an 
educated native of Bombay as English ; and it is the 
only language which a native would think of employing 
if he were writing to a Bengali friend at Calcutta, or to a 
Tamil at Madras. In addition to this use of English 
which mutual convenience dictates, something of the 
same principle, which led the Anglo-Saxons to affect the 
French language as a mark of education and refinement, 
may be seen largely at work amongst our educated native 
youth, both at Bombay and in Bengal. 

It is the observation of slight indications such as these 
that should suggest to the legislator how far he may 

* Minute on the State and Prospects of Education in Bombay. 

^ Lieut. Burton, who is a wit as well as a philologist, thus describes 
the written language of the Sindhian Banyans : — " A system of steno- 
graphy which admits none but initial vowels, and confounds the appear- 
ance of nearly a dozen distinct consonants." — Scinde, or the Unhappy 
Valley, vol. i. p. 239. 



IN INDIA. 



275 



exert himself in his proper province with effect. A 
saying is attributed to Augustus, that with all the power 
of the Eoman empire he could not succeed in introducing 
a new word into the Latin language ; and our Indian 
experience may teach us how futile the acts of legislation 
frequently are, when they clash with old-established 
habits and prejudices. But when the interests of man- 
kind, or of a large portion of mankind, are concerned, 
then the statesman who is able to discern the tendency 
of his age may be able to introduce great changes without 
difficulty, and to make an indelible impression on the 
character of the people over whom he is placed as a ruler, 
^so one, I presume, would imagine that an enactment, 
even under the penalty of death, that Marwadi traders 
should keep their accounts in English, and write to one 
another in round German text, would be anything but 
inoperative \ but a government regulation that every 
candidate for office should be able to pass an examination 
in English would, in the course of a year or two, fill 
every cut cherry throughout India with well-qualified 
candidates (umedwdrs), who would cheerfully bring 
themselves up to the required standard. Above all, the 
language of public business in every country should be 
the language of the governing authority. It is a sur- 
render of an instrument of power to forego the use of the 
mother-tongue on all solemn occasions, when so much 
depends on the exact meaning of the words employed, 
more especially in a country like India, where the 
languages are so diverse, and where everything is re- 
corded. So well is this understood in Europe, that the 
French language, which was formerly used by convention 
(in succession to Latin) as the language of diplomacy, is 
now abandoned in all solemn memorials, and each nation 
expresses itself in its own tongue. The Moguls in India 
maintained Persian as the language of business ; and the 
deep root which the study of that language has thereupon 
struck in the habits and customs of the inhabitants of 
Upper India may be clearly seen in the statistical accounts 

t 2 



276 



ON A LINGUA FRANCA 



of the North-west Provinces, published by the present 
Lieutenant Governor, Mr. Thornason, and is another 
example of the great influence exercised by government 
over speech. The Marathas, in like manner, introduced 
their own language as the language of business ; and I 
have above pointed out the tendency of this institution 
to attract attention to the language amongst the Canarese- 
speaking subjects of the Maratha empire. The British 
Government has very wisely abandoned the use of the 
Persian language, which is neither the mother-tongue of 
the governing body nor of the people ; but in failing to 
substitute English as the language of record, they have 
voluntarily interposed an obstacle to the introduction of 
good government, and have possibly benefited no one 
by the act. 

But these are topics which it would be unsuitable to 
press further on a literary society. There are subjects, 
however, in which the interests of literature are so 
blended with political considerations, that it is impossible 
to sever them ; and language, especially language in 
India, belongs to this class. In dealing with any ques- 
tion in which the interests of a hundred and forty millions 
of mankind are concerned, the more attentively the state 
of present circumstances is considered, so much the more 
forcibly do visions of the future present themselves. At 
no previous period of the world's history was India ever 
held together by such a unity of sway as at the present 
moment ; and at no previous period were large views, 
embracing her future welfare, so capable of being applied. 
To the British in India is committed the task of commu- 
nicating the civilisation, the results of science, and the 
mental energy continually aiming at improvement, which 
distinguish modern Europe ; and in a society like this, 
composed of Englishmen, and of men of letters, it may 
fairly be asked whether any such instrument presents 
itself for accomplishing these noble ends, as the English 
language 1 It is not given to man to penetrate deeply 
the misty future, and it is impossible to predict what the 



IN INDIA. 



277 



connection of Europe with Asia may be some centuries 
hence ; but as every Englishman who is jealous of the 
honour of his country must desire that the name of 
England, as an enlightened benefactress, should be irre- 
vocably blended with that of India, a British monument, 
more useful, possibly more permanent, than the pyramids, 
may be left in the country, but it shall be altogether 
moral, and not composed of brick or marble. 

" Her monument shall be (some) gentle verse, 
And tongues to be (her) being shall rehearse, 
When all the heathens of this world are dead." 

And, not impossibly, this monument may be the very 
language, deeply rooted in India, of our national poet, 
who continues : — 

" (She) still shall live, such virtue hath (the) pen, 
Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men." 



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